The Legend of Silent Hill Continues
by AedianGrendle
Summary: The beginning of a Silent Hill Legend. Who would have know that the box on Richard's table would lead to such disturbing discoveries...
1. Default Chapter

The night was colder than any Richard had ever known in his life. For every step he took Father Jeremiah's words rang in his ears. "_You've given them no choice."_ The aged priest had said. "_Now they know how to get you to Silent Hill." _Was it only five hours ago that he'd sat in the study at St. Peter's Church talking to the Father? So much had changed in so little time…

It had all started only three days ago when Richard's wife Sarah had been reading the newspaper at their kitchen table, lazily flipping the pages as she drank her morning coffee. It was a ritual she'd had ever since Richard had known her. Every morning from 8:30 until 9:00 she diligently read the articles, searching for something that never came.

That is, until the day she dropped her coffee to the table and stared in horror at the front page. Though she'd quickly folded up the paper and, feigning sickness, run up to their room, Richard had seen the title of the article. **Murder in Silent Hill.**

That evening he'd asked her what was so special about the town. He'd never heard of it in his life, but she'd firmly refused to tell him anything. No amount of prodding or pleading had broken her resolve, so he'd been forced to go to outside sources.

The next day he'd searched for everything he could find on Silent Hill in their town library. That was the first snag he'd discovered. Nothing about the town seemed to exist. Even when searching an atlas he had been unable to find as much as a zip code for it. After discreetly asking around, he'd hit the second snag. The few people that had shown any inkling of knowledge about the town immediately feigned stupidity about what it was when he asked.

He'd come home that night to discover a note from his wife sitting on a box wrapped in a brown supermarket bag and marked with an archaic looking seal. Opening the letter first, he'd seen the flowing script of Sarah's handwriting filling the page.

_Richard, _

_Something's happened that I can't even begin to explain. I have to leave for a few days. If I don't call by midnight tonight, you must take the package to Father Jeremiah at St. Peter's. I can't stress how important it is that you don't open the package yourself. _

_If you love me, you'll do as I ask. _

_Sarah_

Midnight had come and gone, but Richard had given her a few extra hours. When there'd been no word by noon the next day, he'd gone to see Father Jeremiah.

The priest had been open and receptive until Richard told him about the article in the newspaper and then had all but demanded Richard leave the church. With a creeping suspicion he'd done so, arriving back home to find that there was still no call from his wife and that the box still sat on their kitchen table.

He'd read through the letter again, wondering why he hadn't taken the box to Father Jeremiah, but knowing that it all had something to do with his intrigueabout Silent Hill.

Finally, he'd decided that it was time to take more desperate measures. Though Sarah had warned him not to open the box its very existence so soon after the article proved it had something to do with Silent Hill, and with Sarah gone he wanted the answers no one had given him. With shaking hands he had slowly opened the seal, slitting it down the middle with his pocket-knife.

Inside had been nothing like he had imagined. Only two scrapbooks with the same kind of archaic markings as the seal on their covers rested beside an ancient leather-bound book.

Taking out the scrapbooks first, Richard had found them marked One and Two. He'd opened the first, marked with One, to find it full of articles about Silent Hill. Headlines such as **Death in Silent Hill**, **Mysterious Disappearances Continue in Silent Hill**, **Serial Killer at Loose**, and **Mysterious Fire Destroys Six Homes** covered the first few pages.

The one about the serial killer caught his eye, and he'd read deeper into it. Now he was sorry he had.

_**Serial Killer at Loose**_

_The mutilated body of a young girl was found at the Silent Hill amusement park today. She is the fifth victim in a series of murders thought to be committed by Walter Sullivan, the same madman that escaped from the Brookhaven Mental Hospital two weeks ago. _

_No names have been released, but it is assumed from police missing person's reports that the young girl is Megan Corning, a life-long resident of Silent Hill who recently disappeared. _

_Walter Sullivan has still eluded police, and is considered armed and extremely dangerous. Any evidence as to his whereabouts should be sent to the Silent Hill police department. _

It had surprised Richard then that with the media's love of violence and gore, that there had been nothing on the news. Now he knew why…he knew all to well.

On a hunch he'd opened the scrapbook it to the back, and noticed the article from the paper he'd seen only a day ago. Sarah had clipped it out and pasted it in. After reading it, he'd noticed remarkable similarities to the case with Walter Sullivan. Checking the dates, he'd found that nearly five years separated the articles, but after searching the scrapbook, it seemed that Walter had never been caught.

Hoping to understand why Sarah had kept the books, he'd opened book Two, hoping desperately to find answers. Instead, his confusion had only deepened.

It was also filled with clippings, but these were focused on people. Several articles about a man named Harry caught his attention, though they didn't seem to make any sense. Several were contradictory, and even more had stated their facts differently than other articles. Towards the middle of the articles had been a short obituary report on Harry, stating that he was survived by a daughter Heather who was the youngest of two. The oldest daughter had been killed in a tragic traffic accident outside of Silent Hill.

Upon reading that, Richard had felt as if his blood had suddenly turned to ice. True, he'd been reading a book of articles about Silent Hill, but the amount of coincidences and the sheer amount of death associated with the town appalled him.

After looking through the entire second scrapbook, he'd found no more articles about Heather. It looked like she'd simply disappeared from the world. In another one of those bizarre "coincidences" Silent Hill had also disappeared after Harry's death.

Terrified, but still curious, he'd put the scrapbooks aside and finally turned his attention to the leather-bound book. It wasn't large, only half as big as the scrapbooks, but weighed much more than they had.

Two words, Silens Tumulosus, had been imprinted on the book, both in a language Richard hadn't known. Beneath them, scratched into the leather, had been the short phrase, _Do they know what was unleashed?_ With hands that had been unsteady since his task had begun, he'd unbuckled a large silver clasp and the book's spine had snapped and popped as it opened.

At first, he'd only noticed that something was unusual about the pages. The script printed on them had been rather boring, and the ink had begun to badly fade in some places.

The book had been about the history of Silent Hill, but the author had seemed almost afraid to write certain facts. Most of the articles Richard had seen in the scrapbooks didn't receive any mention, and upon finishing the book, he'd learned nothing. Purely on a whim, he'd opened it again, and noticed that two of the pages seemed to be sticking together.

He'd gently pulled them apart, and that was when he'd begun to wish he'd taken Sarah's warning more seriously.

_All praise to Sammael, Savior of Silent Hill. He has given us the strength to continue our work in the city. He is patient, but the time is coming soon where his birth will be celebrated by all! With Harry gone and his damned daughter soon to follow, there is nothing that can stop the rebirth of our Lord! A chorus of screams and an orgy of death will soon follow as the world begins to drown in blood! Soon the new sacrifices will be chosen and the rituals will begin!_

That's when Richard had noticed what had seemed so odd about the pages earlier. Each had been carefully glued together. After several hours of careful work, he'd finished ungluing the pages, and had read most of them, each with a deepening sense of horror than the next.

Human sacrifices, demonic rituals, evil symbols etched in human blood…all had been carefully recorded in the depths of the book. Over and over came the same name, Sammael…

Without waiting another minute, he'd thrown the scrapbooks back into the box, loaded everything into his car, and driven to St. Peter's Church to talk with Father Jeremiah.


	2. Father Jeremiah

_I appreciate everyone that thought this story was written well enough to read the second chapter. I'll ask that people leave comments so I can continue adding chapters that please. Whether it is a good review or a bad, I'll consider both. Thank you, and enjoy chapter 2!_

To say Richard was nervous about what he'd discovered would have been one of the gravest understatements of the past century. He was terrified; scared beyond anything he'd ever been before, not necessarily for himself, but for Sarah. If his hunch was correct she was in Silent Hill, for what reason he didn't know, but he couldn't imagine that she could be safe.

Despite his fear, he drove carefully, not wanting to get into a wreck before he'd had a chance to speak with Father Jeremiah. If that happened it could easily damn Sarah's chances of surviving. Though with how long he'd waited, he wasn't sure if she was still alive or not.

As he rounded the final bend to St. Peter's Church, he saw that the parking places were surprisingly empty. Normally the church was busy despite the day. Inwardly he heaved a sigh of relief. His first meeting with Father Jeremiah had been a complete failure, and Richard had hoped to avoid making a scene when he returned.

After parking and retrieving his box from the passenger seat, Richard quickly walked up the stone steps until he stood underneath the awning of the moderate gothic church. On previous visits he'd been intimidated by the architecture, always in awe of the large stained-glass windows, the slate roof, and the carved stonework that decorated the church both inside and out.

Now, he had no time to gawk at the works of man, and knocked loudly on the heavy oak door. The sound echoed far more than it would have if the church had been full. As a result, his knock turned into a deep boom the reverberated in every bone of his body, sending chills down his spine, and probably drawing the attention of even the residents of St. Peter's Cemetery.

As he waited for the door to open, he tried to avoid looking at the stonework. Ultimately he failed, and his eyes came to rest on a beautifully carved angel plummeting down to earth from the heavens. For the first time he realized the carvings represented scenes of the bible, though he couldn't place this one.

"Lucifer being cast out of heaven and sent to serve his sentence in hell." A somewhat hesitant voice said from behind Richard, startling him so badly that he dropped his box, spilling the contents onto the steps of the church.

"I'm sorry Father!" He immediately apologized as he bent down and began picking up the ancient scrapbooks. "I didn't know you where there, but I have to talk to you about……."

His words were cut off as the oak door slammed shut. While he'd been picking up Sarah's works, Father Jeremiah had walked past him and entered the church, successfully barring his entrance.

"Father, you don't understand!" Richard pleaded desperately. "It's not about me, it's about Sarah!"

"I've put Silent Hill behind me Richard." The Father said. "If you can give me one good reason why I should open this door and let it all back in, I will. If not you can kindly get off this property."

A thousand ways to tell Father Jeremiah what had happened raced through Richard's mind, but as the few precious seconds he had ticked away his mind drew a blank.

Behind the door a heavy bolt clicked, locking the door and sealing Richard out. Even as he searched for just the right way to say things he heard footsteps walking away from the door.

"WALTER SULLIVAN!" Richard yelled at the door, saying the first thing that came into his head. "I think he's back in Silent Hill!"

"Walter Sullivan was killed years ago in Brookhaven Mental Hospital." Father Jeremiah said harshly from behind the door. "Now, despite my prodding to keep you from researching Silent Hill, I see you have. So I'll humor you. What made you think Walter Sullivan was back in Silent Hill?"

"The murders have started again." Richard said simply, not knowing any other way to say the news.

For long seconds no sound came from behind the door and Richard had just decided to turn and leave when the lock sounded again and the door swung open to reveal Father Jeremiah.

"What do you mean the murders have started again?" He asked quietly.

"The article in the paper." Richard said, opening the scrapbook to the final page. "Whatever happened in Silent Hill before is happening again."

The blood drained slowly from Father Jeremiah's face until it was as pale as the collar he wore. Next to the carvings on the church, he would have been a perfect statue to join them.

"Finally, he crossed himself repeatedly while saying prayers quietly under his breath, and motioned for Richard to follow him into the church.

As Richard and Father Jeremiah passed into the church, a profound change came over both men. Father Jeremiah became more calm and serine, drawing strength from his surroundings. On the contrary, Richard was able to almost tangibly feel time flowing through his fingers and knew that wherever Sarah was, she was still in danger. To him each of their quick steps took hours, and yet the paths the Father took kept going. First down the hallway, then left through another door, down another small corridor and finally to an office with his name.

Inside the small office was not what Richard would have expected from the normally stern preacher. A rosewood desk sat next to a large bookshelf filled with multiple titles. A small laptop lay on the desk with oldies playing softly from the speakers. The only light came from a sixty watt bulb in a small white porcelain lamp sitting on an oak end table next to the only window.

Without wasting a moment, Father Jeremiah crossed the room in five steps and closed the curtain on the window, effectively leaving the lamp as the sole source of light. On the radio, Elvis sang about his blue suede shoes.

"Why did you come to me about Silent Hill." Father Jeremiah asked as he sat behind the desk in a rickety chair. He motioned for Richard to sit in a matching one on the opposite side before he continued. "What gave it away that I'd been there?"

"Nothing," Richard said honestly. "It was only a letter from Sarah that told me to come to you."

"A letter…" the elderly priest said slowly. "And you think this was all brought about by the article she saw in the paper?"

It was a question that Richard had thought about since he'd first read the letter. What had made Sarah react the way she had? What was it about Silent Hill that made it so infatuating?

"No." He said at length. "I think she'd been searching for something for years. There must have been something that happened a long time ago that made her go to Silent Hill. Now she's gone back."

He jumped as Father Jeremiah slammed his hands down on the desk. "She went back to that accursed town!" He nearly yelled, causing several birds outside to take wing. "Why didn't you tell me before? If she left there's no time to lose."

"Father, what are you talking about?" Richard demanded. "Why did Sarah go back, and what is so special about Silent Hill?"

A fierce sigh was his only response for several seconds. Ultimately, Father Jeremiah looked at him both curiously and seriously. "Do you truly love her, Richard?" He asked gently. "There's no shame in saying you don't. In this day and age it's difficult to find anyone that truly loves someone, but if I'm going to help you, I have to be sure that you do."

After taking a deep breath, Richard nodded. "I love her more than anything in the world Father."

After nodding several times, Father Jeremiah motioned for the box that Richard still held. Handing it over, Richard was surprised to find himself reluctant to pass over the same artifacts that had so scared him. It was almost as if he were handing Sarah's very chance of survival over. Nevertheless, he pushed the feeling away and released the box into the aged priest's still iron grip.

"What you have in this box are items that no mortal should ever have laid eyes on. The scrapbooks are a constant link to Silent Hill. I think Sarah knew that and hoped that if the forces behind the town ever decided to reassert themselves, that she would have a warning and be able to stop it."

"What forces are you talking about?" Richard asked.

Without answering immediately, Father Jeremiah reached for the leather book, pausing only for a moment to read the words on the front. "Silens Tumulosus." He said under his breath. "Latin for Silent Hill…at least that's the closest translation I can find."

With skilled fingers, he flipped through the pages, giving a disgusted snort at the contents. Without stopping his page turning, he began explaining things to Richard.

"Silent Hill was founded over two hundred years ago. It was a time of fear in the America's. Nothing was certain, but what the founders did know is that they needed a new savior. I don't know exactly what had happened, nor do I even think those still in Silent Hill know to this day. The true reason is lost in time. All that's certain is that for some reason the residents turned their back on God."

He stopped flipping and began reading, crossing himself several times as he did so. "Henceforth, our fair town shall be under the protection not of the Christian God, but of those very ones he cast out in ages past. In a town meeting only yesterday, we called upon Baal, Diablo, Mephisto, Beelzabub, and above all their lord and master Sammael to guide and protect us."

"I read those names earlier." Richard explained. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"In the Catholic Church, we recognize that the devil has several other demons with him in hell. Those mentioned in the article are all the highest ranking demons of the underworld. To name one of them is terrible, but to call upon all of them." Though the room was unusually warm, he shuddered.

"That explains some of them, but who is Sam…"

"In God's name do not utter that word here!" Father Jeremiah shouted. "Do so and you could very well damn us all!"

"I'm sorry!" Richard stammered.

Father Jeremiah nodded. "It's not your fault that you're dealing with forces you've never dreamed of." He collected himself further before continuing. "It's common knowledge now that one of the greatest secrets of the Catholic Church is the true name of God. In this day of the internet and fallen priests, it's become almost common knowledge. What isn't commonly known is that the dark churches of the devil know the true name of the devil."

Richard's eyes opened widely at the news. "Do you mean to say…"

"Yes." Father Jeremiah whispered sadly. "They formally asked the devil to be the savior of their town…and used his true name to get his attention. This is why Silent Hill is so deadly.


	3. The Truth Begins to Unravel

I'm sorry for this taking so long to post. College has been getting busy since it's about over. I appreciate the comments, and to the loyal readers out there, please leave suggestions and ideas you'd like to see me implement. Also, if I've made any mistakes in plot or names please let me know. I've been researching, but there's always room for error. Thank you,

David Struve A.K.A Aedian Grendle

"I can't believe it." Richard said, the shock of what Father Jeremiah had just told him sinking in. "They summoned demons to watch over them?"

Father Jeremiah hesitated for a short while before shaking his head. "In a word, no. They summoned those specific demons not to watch over them, but to keep their true intent a secret."

"Their true intent?" Richard asked nervously. "You mean they had more than one reason for summoning the demons?"

On the radio Elvis finished singing about his shoes and the Eagles began crooning about driving down a dark desert highway.

A deep sigh was the only sign Richard had that Father Jeremiah had begun to talk while his attention was diverted by the radio. The dark frown on his face told him that anymore lulls in attention would not be tolerated.

"I don't know the true reason the original demons were summoned, only that eventually they weakened. They'd spent years protecting the town with little in return, and they needed certain rites to continue their work. That was the beginning of The Order, the true power behind Silent Hill and the scariest thing I've ever seen."

The small hairs on Richard's neck stood on end as Father Jeremiah leaned forward to speak, lowering his voice as if members of The Order stood directly outside his door waiting for a reason to incriminate him.

"The Order is the true reason that Silent Hill slid so far into darkness. Most in the city believed that the demands of the demons to continue to protect them were far too much. Certain key members, however, banded together and sacrificed those that didn't believe as they did. This led more demons to be attracted to the city. Now, nearly every demon, lesser and greater has their hand in Silent Hill."

The chills traveling down Richard's spine continued unabated, growing more ferocious with every passing second. He didn't want to know anything more. He wished now that he'd never opened the damned box Sarah had left. 'Why didn't I listen to her?' his mind screamed at him even as he asked Father Jeremiah the question he knew could lead to his death.

"How do I get to Silent Hill?" He asked seriously.

"I can't tell you that yet." Father Jeremiah said quietly. "You don't know everything you need to."

Again consulting the book in front of him, the priest nodded at some random fact and began talking again. "By the time The Order took power over the city, it was only a hundred years ago, and Silent Hill was thriving. One of their first acts was to build both Brookhaven Hospital and Brookhaven Mental Institution. Most people applauded their thinking, and within five years an orphanage had been added to the list of luxuries the town had. It was all a lie."

"You mean they didn't actually build any of those things?" Richard questioned.

"No they built them." Father Jeremiah explained. "However they had an ulterior motive for building them. All three buildings would attract citizens, adding numbers to those that could be sacrificed. Also, they would have a steady stream of people to experiment on for the rituals. A crematorium in the basement of the hospital ensured that. All they had to do was burn wood and put it in an urn…then they had a body to give over to the demons."

"That explains the hospital and the mental institution, but the orphanage…" Richard began before his eyes widened in horror. "You don't mean they killed the children!"

A quick headshake silenced him. "Not most of them, though compared to the alternative it could have been better for those children. The school was used as a center to begin preaching their perverted gospel. Children were encouraged to speak to do acts to get the demons attention and be 'blessed' by them. You must remember that The Order was in power now, but they needed a figurehead. It would be ninety long years before that finally happened, and in the meantime the town became darker and more evil."

Richard stood up and began pacing. Across the room his shadow followed him, throwing random objects into darkness. "Didn't anyone notice what was happening?" He asked angrily. "Not everyone could want to be a part of The Order."

"And they weren't." Father Jeremiah explained. "Only a few dozen members of The Order existed in the town. The rest were innocent people that saw outstanding citizens leading outstanding lives. On the outside, everything appeared to be perfect. Yet by 1990, things had begun to happen that The Order couldn't explain."

On a hunch, Richard opened the first scrapbook and found the only article about Silent Hill in the few years around 1990. **Fire Destroys Homes in Silent Hill.**

"You're trying to tell me in a town that summoned demons for protection a fire was unusual?" He asked dryly, pointing to the article.

Father Jeremiah chuckled, sensing the question for what it really was. "No, the unusual part was the reason it was started. That was the beginning of the end for Silent Hill."

"The end?"

"The fire was started for a reason." He hesitated, tears welling up in his eyes and spilling down his cheeks in twin trails of glittering crystal. "Poor Alessa…she deserved better in life than she received."

Richard felt another set of chills run down his spine. Alessa had been one of the names in the leather book Father Jeremiah held. Though it hadn't been in the original text it had been slashed into several pages, the pen used to write it forced down so hard that it was a miracle the pages hadn't torn.

"You recognize the name." Father Jeremiah said, not a question as much as a statement. "And that's good. It will make what I'm going to tell you much more believable."

"Father, I've stuck with you through a town summoning demons for protection and establishing a cultic movement that threatens the lives of hundreds of its citizens. I don't give a damn what else you say, but say it fast. My wife's in danger." Richard demanded.

"After you hear about Alessa, you'll be lucky if you don't go screaming out that door and try never to hear about Silent Hill again. From now on even the mention of the town will bring images to your mind so powerful that you won't sleep for a week after you return…if you don't kill yourself before that time is up. So I'm asking you one last time, do you want to know the truth? Do you truly want to try save your wife?"

The question hung in the air as the aged priest waited for its answer. For the first time, Richard began to question whether or not it was worth going to the city. Sarah could already be dead, and he could quit now…

"I swore an oath Father." He said, as sure about this answer as he'd ever been of one in his life. "Till death do us part, and I won't turn my back on her now."

For the first time in the already long afternoon, Father Jeremiah smiled. "Then as you're in the city, keep that ideal close to you. It could help you more than you know."

"Tell me about Alessa."

Again grief clouded the priest's eyes, seeming to deepen as he talked. "Alessa was a good child, but born to a fanatical cultist named Dahlia. She was one of the leaders of The Order, and had been one of the first to begin using White Claudia in her rituals."

"Is that some kind of ritual to summon demons?" Richard asked.

"No, it's a drug found only around Silent Hill. By the time Dahlia assumed her position in The Order, most of their priests were addicted to it. It's even possible that she was under the under the influence of it when she began her most heinous crime."

"The fires?" Richard guessed, wondering what that would have to do with Alessa.

Ignoring Richard, Father Jeremiah continued speaking. "Yet Dahlia had a daughter named Alessa. Alessa was…gifted I suppose you'd say. Perhaps from a side effect of the White Claudia during pregnancy, Alessa developed powers that bordered on supernatural. She showed a moderate level of skill in telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and even mind reading. You can see how this was a problem for her with such a fanatic for a mother."

Richard nodded, though the question hadn't been meant literally.

"The children in The Order's school soon found that Alessa was special, and began to avoid her. After years of emotional torment, Alessa threw herself into the rituals and her psychic powers grew. This was when Dahlia suddenly decided that Alessa was the perfect figurehead for The Order, but there was something that had to be done first. In a horrendous ritual, Dahlia burned her home with Alessa in it."

"Dear God!" Richard exclaimed, nearly retching in horror. Ironically, the Eagles finished singing, and 'We Didn't Start the Fire' began to play. Instinctively, both men reached for the radio and Father Jeremiah snapped it off even as Richard unplugged it.

"God had nothing to do with it." Father Jeremiah said sadly. "The best thing would have been for Alessa to die, but she survived…somehow. Yet with the ritual complete, her wounds would never heal, keeping her in a permanent excruciating pain. Her soul had also been infused with that of Sammael. The combination of both forced her already existent psychic abilities to explode."

"What happened then?" Richard managed to choke out.

"I can't be sure, but the town began to turn dark and evil. Some thought it was the power of Sammael finally taking the town, while others thought it was Alessa seeking revenge. Either way, that is all I know."

In an instant, Richard was on his feet. "What do you mean that's all you know? What about Harry and these articles? What happened to Silent Hill?"

A shrug was his only answer. "I don't know."

"How did you know all the other information the…" Suddenly he started thinking. He'd never seen any pictures of Father Jeremiah's parents or relatives on the walls, in the few years he'd known the man there'd never been any mention of a family.

"The orphanage!" He blurted. "You went to the Silent Hill Orphanage!"

"And survived." Father Jeremiah confirmed. "I was one of the few that wasn't used for a ritual, die of exhaustion, or for anything else. There were only three of us that came from the orphanage and assumed roles within The Order. Myself, Sarah, and a man you already know."

"But I don't know anyone else from Silent Hill." Richard said, forcing himself to ignore Sarah's name in connection with Silent Hill.

"You've already used it to get my attention. Walter Sullivan also survived the Orphanage, though heavily mentally damaged. His death is a boon to society after his killing spree. Ironic that he died in Silent Hill after all those years."

Richard nodded. "And you escaped?"

"When I left, Walter had already begun his killing spree. He had always wanted to find his mother, and had started a ritual on getting her back. I truly don't know many details, only that he hoped to use a ragged doll someone had given him. Yet after he left that marked the beginning of the end for The Order. They had fewer and fewer people coming in, and then Alessa was burned."

"That was the final straw?"

"Easily. I'd known Alessa since she was born, and she was a good child." He said the words again, stressing them harshly. "A good child! She didn't deserve her fate. Afterwards, Sarah and I visited her frequently. Each time we saw her pain and suffering, but there was nothing we could do. Her nurse and Dr. Kaufmann refused to let us give her anything for the pain, and so we left in the night. It wasn't the right choice, but neither of us had any illusions of joining The Order. We only sought to bring it down from the inside. Now Sarah evidently works to bring it down still. I've long gotten over my hate."

"How is it you joined St. Peter's after all this?" Richard wondered.

"By lying. I told them I'd had years of religious training. I never said to which deity."

From deep inside the church, a bell began to toll, marking five o'clock. Though the two men hadn't been in Father Jeremiah's office long, it seemed as if an eternity had passed.

"I need to go." Richard said quietly. "I don't have anymore time Father."

"Understandable." Father Jeremiah said just as quietly. "But there's one last stop you need to make."

Even as he said those words, Father Jeremiah opened a desk drawer and withdrew a small cigar box. He carefully set it on his desk and opened it to reveal several bundles of cash.

"This is part of our missionary fund." He said while counting out bills onto his table. "There's no greater missionary act than what you're doing." He finished counting and handed a stack of green hundred dollar bills to Richard.

"There's two thousand dollars here. I'd recommend going to the gun shop three blocks down and purchasing a handgun. There's a dark force in Silent Hill. I wouldn't go in unarmed."

Nodding, Richard pocketed the money and led the way out of the church. As the two men exited St. Peter's, brilliant lances of sunlight stabbed at his eyes. Yet for all the sun, a black mass of clouds billowed on the horizon.

"I think your question's been answered." Father Jeremiah said seriously, motioning towards the coming storm front. "Silent Hill chose to reveal itself you to. You've given them no choice. They know how to get you to Silent Hill. They took your wife, and now you follow."

"Wish me luck Father." Richard said before he walked to his car, and opened the door.

Calling his name once, Father Jeremiah tossed Richard the box of books that he'd carried from the church. "This is the only way you'll know your enemy."

Without another word, Richard started his car and drove in the direction of Grady's gun shop.

As the car passed from his sight, Father Jeremiah re-entered the church and walked to his office. Outside the door, he paused as a long forgotten smell assaulted his nostrils. Accepting his fate, Father Jeremiah opened the door and entered.

Inside, he sat at his desk and fingered the rosary beads he always carried. "I know you're here."

There was no response to his statement until a figure detached itself from the shadows cast from his lamp nearby.

"It can't be!" Father Jeremiah gasped. "You're…"

As the figure walked over to the door and slowly closed it, Father Jeremiah began to pray. Seconds later, he joined the God he'd served for so long as a form long thought dead claimed his life.


	4. A Surprise Visitor

_Wow, there's been a lot more response than I had ever dreamed possible, and I'd like to say thank you for that. The feedback has been astounding, and I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as the others. In it, I thought I'd pay an homage to the old urban legends and horror movies and make this one a little cliched but still enjoyable. Don't worry, this is the only chapter I will truly base off urban legends and the such. I just don't think any good horror story is authentic without this situation though. Agreed? Also, I'd like to clear up that this takes place AFTER Silent Hill 4, but I'm going with the ending where Eileen lived. I can't say much more without giving things away, but it will be explained in good time. Enjoy!_

_David Struve AKA Aedian Grendle_

The billowing bank of dark clouds inched closer as Richard drove. After leaving St. Peter's he'd made a quick detour back to his house and had changed clothes. Before, he'd been in a t-shirt and khaki pants. Now he was in heavy denim jeans and steel toed boots. Though he still wore a t-shirt, he'd decided to wear a leather jacket he'd received for Christmas over it. It was one of the best jackets he owned, but without knowing what kind of situation he'd be in, he wanted clothing that would hold up to any type of occasion.

With the money from Father Jeremiah in his pocket, he'd then gone to Grady's Gun Shop. Now he shifted in the front seat of his car, unused to the hanging weight of the Beretta slung in a leather holster under his left arm. Two clips of ammunition were stuffed in his pockets, and three boxes of ammunition were in the glove compartment. He'd been amazed at how easy it was to buy the handgun after he'd waved several hundred dollar bills under the shopkeeper's eyes.

The shopkeeper had even thrown in a free box of ammunition that Richard had spread equally among his pockets, ensuring the ability to reload if he was separated from his car. A sharp knife the shopkeeper had called a Kabar completed his weaponry. It wasn't enough to stop an army of demons, but it was much more than he'd had before.

'Besides,' his mind said. 'You won't be able to survive Silent Hill by force.' As much as he wanted to disagree, Richard knew it was a valid point. Not even a tank would able to ensure his safety. Speed and quick thinking were all he had.

The soft hum of the tires eventually replaced his thoughts as the miles flew by. Dusk began to fall, and still the bank was out of his reach. He had a creeping feeling that the city wouldn't choose to show itself until night was well on its way. Demons probably wouldn't want you to be investigating in the bright sunshine.

He didn't want to get to the city that late. In his quickness to leave, he'd forgotten to pack anything other than a penlight. While it would enough to investigate small buildings, it would serve no good outdoors.

Dusk slowly gave way to night as Richard willed his Honda to go faster. A glowing sliver of moon gave only the barest need of light, and soon Richard found himself as the only person on the Midwest highway. Darkness blocked his windows, and the only light was the gentle green glow of his dashboard. Outside, his headlights cut a weak swath through the black.

Another hour passed as Richard's foot lowered more and more on the accelerator. Soon the needle passed 100 and still he raced towards the dark clouds.

In the distance, Richard saw what appeared to be a person, standing by the side of the road with his thumb out. Within the span of two heartbeats, his car had flown by and continued on its way, leaving the hitchhiker behind. 'You don't want to go where I'm going buddy.' Richard thought to himself.

Three miles later, he saw the same figure standing on the road's shoulder, thumb extended.

An hour ago, Richard would have told you his life couldn't have gotten stranger. Now he wasn't sure. Just as the speedometer slipped below fifty, he passed the figure. He hadn't been in Richard's sight long enough to get a good glimpse at him, but he looked eerily familiar.

He stopped his car a few hundred yards after where the figure had stood, and glanced over his shoulder. No one was in sight, and the only movement was the beginnings of a fog bank that rolled and swirled lazily on the ground.

Scared, but knowing that this was beyond coincidence, Richard turned off the car's engine and opened the door, simultaneously drawing his Beretta. The moonlight glistened off the polished finish, making it look as if Richard held liquid steel in his hand.

With the fog rolling around his ankles, Richard started walking back to where he'd seen the strange hitchhiker. Each step seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet of the night, and even the gentlest footfall echoed through the air.

He walked fifty yards from his car, then one hundred and still heard nothing. The mysterious hitchhiker had vanished, leaving no sign that he'd ever existed.

Turning, Richard saw a canvas bag sitting halfway between him and his car. The fog swirled concealed the bottom half, giving the impression that below the letters **ETER'S** nothing existed.

Richard walked carefully over to it, holding the pistol out in front of him defensively. As he reached the bag, he reached carefully down and picked it up, nearly dropping it when he realized what he held.

In his hand was an offering bag from St. Peter's Church. Even as he realized what he held, blood began to drip from the bottom onto his shoes. A crimson stain spread along the entirety of the canvas.

As he dropped the bag, retching in horror, it landed with a wet thud and Father Jeremiah's head rolled out onto the highway. The fog swirled away from the grisly sight and the head made a complete circuit, leaving a trail of crimson in a near perfect circle before it came to a rest, wide open eyes staring directly at Richard.

Dry heaves racked Richard's body, and he sunk to one knee before scrambling backwards from the open mouthed priest's head.

At the same time a maniacal laughter rang out from behind him. Ignoring the pain in his stomach and the weakness in his legs, Richard was on his feet in an instant and sprinting towards his car.

The sound of laughter followed him, gaining quickly as Richard covered the ground between himself and his Honda. Half the distance remained when he heard the slap of another set of footsteps on the road.

Reaching behind himself, Richard fired several shots from his Beretta wildly. The shots lit the night in quick bursts and sent a thunderously echoing crack into the night air, instantly deafening Richard's hearing. Yet not even the echoing thunder of his weapon could stop the sadistic laughter from reaching his ears.

Only ten yards separated Richard from his car when he felt something brush by his sleeve. Instantly the laughter stopped, leaving a deathly stillness to the air.

Not willing to waste his opportunity, Richard sprinted the remaining distance to his car and threw the door open, diving inside and quickly locking the doors. Only an instant passed as he looked down to fumble with his keys, and he looked up at the same time he slammed the key in the ignition and turned the vehicle on, illuminating the road.

Illuminating the road AND the figure that stood in the middle of it. Dressed in a faded blue straight-jacket, the figure wouldn't have caused many to fear him. Even with his shoulder-length dingy white hair there wasn't much that commanded attention.

That's not what Richard was looking at. Richard only saw the head of Father Jeremiah being held in the man's left hand and a bloody crucifix in his right. He only saw the demented gleam that reflected in the man's eyes, and he only saw the faded nametag that graced the man's straight-jacket.

_**Walter Sullivan**_

The very name sent shudders down Richard's back as he shifted the car into gear. 'Father Jeremiah lied to me!' his mind screamed even as his foot mashed the accelerator to the floorboard. His Honda's tires screamed as the car shot forward, slamming hard into Walter and throwing him over the car.

The force of the strike sent cracks through his windshield, and left a large smear of crimson along the passenger side of the main windshield.

Richard didn't care, didn't even try to slow down. The serial killer Walter Sullivan had been standing only feet from him holding Father Jeremiah's head. Then it hit Richard. How had Walter made it so far in front of him if he'd killed Father Jeremiah? How had he caught up to a car going 100 on foot?

"You left something back on the road." A deeply rich-toned voice said from behind him. "Something you shouldn't leave behind."

In horror Richard turned his head and saw Walter Sullivan sitting calmly in the backseat, canvas bag on his left side and Richard's Beretta in his right hand. A large cut bled red down the side of his face and stained his hair pink. If he felt any pain, he didn't show it.

To paralyzed by fear to say anything, Richard's foot stayed on the accelerator not speeding up, but not slowing either.

"I wouldn't recommend doing anything but driving." Richard said calmly. "Something…bad could happen." He waved the Beretta slightly in his hand.

Richard swallowed hard and forced his foot to stay on the accelerator. "You're dead. Father Jeremiah said so. This is just a trick from Silent Hill."

"That's strange, we aren't at Silent Hill yet, but here I am. Sitting in your backseat and holding a pistol that you dropped on the road. How do you explain that?"

"You killed Father Jeremiah." Richard said angrily. "You murdered him."

"Number twenty." Walter whispered to himself before raising his voice. "But that wouldn't have happened if you'd listened to Sarah. You never should have opened the box."

"How do you know about that?" Richard shouted, his Honda swerving badly on the road as he looked behind him again. "There's no way you'd possibly know!"

Walter leaned forward from the backseat until his mouth was an inch from Richard's ear. The dry breath of his mouth proving he wasn't an illusion. "Unless I had Sarah." He whispered.

Richard took the opening he'd been offered, slamming on the brakes and sending the unbalanced Walter flying forward through the already cracked windshield. Glass shattered into thousands of crystal shards, showering Richard in a hail of glittering Plexiglas.

Walter's body landed with a sickening crunch before being swallowed by a think wave of fog that suddenly appeared.

Knowing his car was useless; Richard drew his knife and got out. Moving as silently as he could, he crept forward, looking for where Walter had hit. All he found was another pool of blood with his Beretta lying in the middle.

Richard reached down and picked up the pistol, crimson dripped from the handgrip, but he fought down his nausea and re-holstered it. As he put his coat back in place, the fog lifted slightly revealing two more bone-chilling puzzles.

Written on the road in the same blood that Walter had no doubt shed were the words _Welcome to Silent Hill Richard_. Beside the words sat a small combination two way walkie-talkie and radio.

Richard picked it up and turned it on. The radio remained silent, not even making the slightest noise. With a resigned sigh he clipped it onto his belt and took a step forward, passing the pool of blood.

In the same way the fog had lifted to reveal his weapon and new-found radio, it did again to reveal a city sprawled out ahead of him. A few dozen yards to his right stood a decrepit old sign with scripted letters saying:

**SILENT HILL**

**POP: 5,830**

**The Safest Little Midwestern Town You'll Find!**

Richard had finally arrived at Silent Hill, and as he began the walk down into the city, he heard mocking laughter ringing from the hills and forests around him. Walter Sullivan was still alive.


	5. The First Step

_I suppose I should have put this first, but Silent Hill is the property of Konami, all rights reserved. Glad that's out of the way. _

_A large apology goes out to anyone that read chapter four. I made a mistake towards the end by putting in Richard's name when I should have put Walter's. Thanks to Saddened Soul for pointing that out to me. _

_Now comes the point I'm sure you all were waiting for…the first place that Richard will visit in Silent Hill. Enjoy!_

It was a short walk down into Silent Hill, and Richard quickly found himself standing in the middle of a fog filled intersection. After looking around, he finally saw a street sign standing on the corner of the street he stood on.

"Midwich Street." He said quietly to himself before looking around for something that would clue him in to where he was. Though the fog made it difficult, after a bit of searching he found a smashed box of brochures for the city. Most were wet and useless from the fog, but in the middle of the pile he found one that was useable.

With the map spread out in front of him, Richard saw that Silent Hill was much more spread out than he'd thought. With Walter on the loose, he'd hoped to have a smaller town that he could learn quickly. Now he'd be forced to cross large open spaces where the fog hid everything except what was literally arms-length away.

The map also showed him that he was only a block away from Midwich School. Since it was the only school on the map, it seemed a good place to start in looking for clues not only to Sarah, but to the mysterious Alessa that Father Jeremiah had talked about.

Richard knew, somehow, that whatever Sarah was involved in also involved what had happened years ago with Alessa. Even if he found nothing at the school, he had to start somewhere and he figured that the last place Walter would want to go was a school run by Silent Hill.

As he turned, he saw that someone had already beaten him to deciding his first destination. A bloody arrow had been drawn on the ground behind him, pointing down the road in the direction of Midwich School. Beside it sat two boxes of ammunition for his Beretta and a note.

After tucking the map into his jacket pocket, Richard picked up the ammunition and the note. Written in dark marker was a simple mocking script in an unfamiliar handwriting.

_You seem to have problems forgetting things. Take the bullets with you. They'll stop your nightmares…they might even stop me._

_W.S._

It didn't take a genius to figure out who W.S. was; the only question was why he hadn't taken the opportunity to kill Richard yet. Surely if he could sneak up on him with such ease, then ending his life wouldn't be difficult.

Putting those thoughts out of his mind, Richard rigged a small pouch to carry the boxes of ammo in and began to walk in the direction of Midwich School.

Only a few spaced street lamps kept the street from being awash in blackness, and Richard had to struggle even to catch a glimpse of them in the heavy fog. Even with the pale yellow light they cast, Richard had no choice but to walk slowly with his pistol in front of him.

Every passing moment his nerves were tested as vague outlined shadows crept silently along the hidden road. He couldn't tell what the shapes were, but somehow that didn't make him feel any better.

After passing a few streets, he saw what he thought was the school ahead in the fog. It was difficult to make out, but he breathed a sigh of relief that he'd made it without another encounter with Walter.

In the distance a siren suddenly began to blow and within seconds Richard's world was turned upside down. In the span of a single blink everything he knew changed.

The streetlamps still gave off their light, but now cast a blood red glow into the night. The road cracked and split, entire cars sinking into suddenly opening caverns that belched fire. Buildings quickly lost their warming quality; decay, rot, and blood painting their walls. Even the night itself became darker, as if the moon itself had disappeared.

At first Richard didn't move, scared to do anything that might set the world off into another shift. He had no idea what had happened to force the world to change so dramatically, but whatever it was wasn't something he wanted to repeat.

Slowly the sound of the siren faded from the night, echoing around the street until finally disappearing altogether. Silence filled the night until Richard began to hear a low crackling sound coming from his right.

With no idea what was making the sound, he raised his pistol and spun. The sound followed his movement, growing slowly louder. Not willing to waste ammo on something he couldn't see Richard continued his turn, only to find the sound still following him.

Only after calming down a little did he realize that the sound was coming from his belt. With a heavily shaking left hand, Richard reached down and plucked the two way radio from his belt. In his haste to get to the city he'd forgotten to shut it off after checking to see if it worked. Now it belched a steady stream of static, filling the air with white noise.

Around him, the fog began to swirl as vague forms appeared. In an instant Richard assumed a shooter's stance, left foot slightly in front of his right and the pistol shoulder level on his left side.

The form suddenly materialized only a few yards from Richard, sparking a sudden remembrance of the fascination he'd had with mythical beasts he'd had as a boy. Now, however, there was no safety of a book's page. In front of him was a creature so hideous as to sicken him at the very sight of it.

Standing only three feet tall, the creature had the lower body of a scaly lizard, but stood on two legs with both feet ending in sharply curved claws. Its chest had a white luminescence that reflected the bloody glow of the street lights, with withered human arms, pale and liver spotted, protruding from its torso.

The worst sight, however, was by far its face. The creature had a human looking head, but with severe differences. Long stringy white hair hung lankly from its head, stained a dingy gray from the rot and decay of the city. Richard saw it was grinning hungrily, revealing rows of needle-like teeth that cracked and crunched together as it opened and closed its mouth. The creature's eyes were what captivated Richard. Much as its belly, the eyes were a pale color that perfectly reflected the crimson glow that now highlighted the orbs, giving them a demented and homicidal gleam.

Richard didn't wait any longer to examine it, in fact had only seen the creature for a second, before he raised his pistol and fired two shots. Twin blasts of fire shot from the muzzle, the light shadowing several more in the fog, and the creature's twisted face disappeared in a shower of crimson. The force of the shots flung it backwards, the body twitching disgustingly on the ground before lying still.

From the swirling fog came two more of the twisted things. Moving quickly, they let out a high pitched squeal and bent down to their fallen member. Needle-sharp teeth ripped into the dead creature and wet smacking sounds filled the night air even as bloody chunks of the creature disappeared into human looking mouths.

Gagging, Richard turned and ran down the street. From behind him one of the creatures raised its head and screamed a single word into the night air, the sound being heard and picked up by countless other creatures around the street.

"RICHARD!" They screamed in a high-pitched cackle, a sound so chilling and full of the promise of death that it only spurred its target on in his desperate flight to the nearest building that would get him away from the horrific creatures.

That building just happened to be the Midwich School. In his hurried flight, Richard covered the remaining distance to the destination Walter Sullivan had set out for him a seeming eternity ago.

Richard passed a hedge wall that stood as tall as his neck and continued running, lowering his shoulder and slamming hard into the entrance. The door's lock held, and as he leaned back Richard heard the sound of pattering feet and the scraping of claws on concrete. Behind him, the creatures screeched his name again.

He slammed into the door hard again, rocking it back on its hinges and creaking loudly under the strain, yet it still held. In a panic, Richard stood back and fired two shots at the lock, sending wood shards flying through the air, but shattering the lock on the door.

A final shoulder slam knocked the door open, and Richard dove through, firing shots at the lizard creatures even as he landed. Two more exploded from his shots before he could gain his feet and slam the door shut. With the lock shattered, all he could do was brace himself against the door and hope that he was strong enough to hold it back from the creatures.

The expected blow never came. From outside Richard heard the same eating sounds as before and didn't waste his time. A heavy chair rested against the wall and in a moment Richard had it securely wedged against the door. The weight wouldn't stop the creatures if they truly wanted to get in, but it would stop most attempts…as well as make a huge noise if they finally did break in.

With a deep breath, he looked around and found that the beyond the blood-red glow of the streetlights, it was impossible to see beyond the gloom. Sighing, Richard pulled out his pen light and switched it on. The light cut a tiny swath through the darkness, and illuminated a set of double doors.

Steadying his nerves, Richard held his pistol in front of himself, and opened the door. It was time to find some answers.


	6. A grisly surprise

_Here's the next chapter for Silent Hill. The next will be up within two days (I promise) because this one is admittedly almost a teaser. Still, it brings back everyone's favorite anti-hero and introduces yet another creature!_

A large courtyard garden. That was the sight that greeted Richard as he swung the double doors open. Trying to hide his surprise at seeing a garden in the midst of a school, he swung the penlight in a tight circle to check for any other creatures that might be hiding in the shadows.

The light, small as it was, revealed nothing. Turning to his radio, Richard released a small sigh of relief when it only crackled dimly in the night.

He walked slowly forward, small baby steps carrying him through holes in the waist-high hedges. As he moved he swung the penlight from left to right, squinting to make out shapes in the gloom. The only movement was from a small gutter that water dripped from, sending pings of sound through the yard.

He'd nearly reached the center of the garden when his light illuminated a vague form a few yards ahead of him. Stopping instantly, Richard's pistol came up faster than he'd believed it could and before he could stop himself he fired a shot.

The courtyard was instantly illuminated by the burst of fire before again falling into gloom. In the brief flash of light, Richard saw the figure standing in front of him jerk to the side, but still remain standing.

A second shot followed the first, again ripping into the person's body, and still they remained standing. This time, however, Richard had seen something by the flash. Taking a few steps closer, his penlight played up the figure. The light revealed bloodied Nike shoes, torn and tattered pants, a shredded shirt, and a face the grinned as if the figure had enjoyed the torture.

Torture was an apt word for what the figure had gone through. Held to a metal cage by bits of rusted wire, nails, and a rope around his stomach, the person had been hurt beyond anything Richard had ever seen. Numerous cuts marred his skin, the blood now dry and crusty, limbs hung at an odd angle from the snapped bones within them though several had been broken so savagely as to rip through the skin, what Richard had originally thought to be a rope around the man's waist now revealed itself to be his intestines, now holding him eternally to his prison.

Then Richard's eyes played further up, to the slashed and bloodied throat and finally to the face…or what remained of it. The lower jaw was missing, and shards of teeth poked through where the lower jaw should have been. Cataracted green eyes stared out from their sockets, with missing lids that would never again cover them.

In a moment of horror Richard realized he knew the body, knew who the man was that had been so horribly tortured. He stared at his own body, at his own desecrated corpse, and his own ruined face.

"Do you like my gift Richard?" An all too familiar voice asked from behind him. "I had it made especially for you."

Ripping his eyes away from the abomination in front of him, Richard dropped into a low crouch even as he spun around. The pistol led the way, but even before he'd completed half the turn he felt a hand close around the weapon and himself flying through the air.

He landed with a painful thud five yards away, the force of the landing forcing the air out of his lungs in a loud whoosh.

"Haven't you learned anything?" Walter Sullivan asked. "You'll never be as fast as I am Richard. Didn't you like my gift?"

Richard groaned, a pitiful sound next to the commanding power of Walter's voice. At the same time, the serial killer's voice began to rise until it became all encompassing, drowning out any other noises in the courtyard.

"Doesn't it have a certain beauty to it?" He asked as he walked over to where Richard lay prostrate on the dead grass. "I know you don't see it now, but eventually you'll understand."

"You're insane." Richard managed to whisper from the ground, a little air finally making its way back into his lungs.

Walter stopped suddenly, looking strangely at Richard. "Insane?" He asked quietly, voice back to normal. "Yes…" He whispered, drawing the word out with a slow sense of astonishment. "Yes, I suppose you could say I am."

Richard managed to put his hands under his body and raise himself to a single knee. "You kill for the fun of it. You murdered Father Jeremiah and countless others."

"Nineteen others." Walter said quietly. "But none of that matters now." In a strange gesture, he reached down and offered Richard a hand. Pushing it aside, Richard finally got to his feet and stared his fear in the face.

"You've killed twenty people. Now you're going to make it twenty-one. Well, I won't die as easily as you think I will." With a deliberate motion Richard drew the knife that had been strapped to his leg, and held it in front of him.

A small chuckle escaped Walter's mouth. "I have no intention of killing you…yet."

The shock Richard felt must have shown on his face, for Walter continued.

"There's something about you that intrigues me…a certain quality that I'm curious about." He stopped and looked at Richard, cocking his head to a strange angle as he did so. "In fact, I think you might have the ability to…"

"The ability to what?" Richard asked angrily, his fear out-weighed by his anger.

"Nevermind." Walter said shortly, turning and walking back towards the tortured corpse. "Think of this as a warning. He wasn't as careful as he should have been in Silent Hill. The keeper caught him, and if he catches you there's nothing even I can do to save you."

"I thought you said that YOU made this for me?" Richard accused.

"I lied." Walter said simply. "Something that you're all too familiar with."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Walter chuckled again, the sound sending shivers down Richard's spine. "I'm sure you'll find out…after all, this is Silent Hill." He spun around suddenly, and faced Richard. "One last bit of advice. Watch out for the Chupas. They're not deadly on their own, but the little bastards like to hunt in packs."

"Chupas?"

"You know the creatures I'm talking about." Walter said impatiently. "Now take this and keep moving." A fast flick of his wrist sent the Beretta flying back into Richard's hands.

Then, Walter walked away, disappearing into the shadows as if he were one of them. Without wasting another moment, Richard turned and sprinted back to the entrance, stopping short when he saw that there was no escape.

Heavy chains and locks barred the door. Taped to the largest lock was a small white note which Richard picked up and read.

_You don't have a choice. If you want to escape the school, you'll have to go through it. There is no turning back now. Remember…I can't save you from the Keeper. Don't try to undo the chains. Henry tried for five days and couldn't. You don't have that kind of time."_

Richard had no idea who Henry was, but he knew that if the man had spent five days working on the chains, there was no way he could undo them in a few minutes.

Using the tape that had held the note to the door, Richard attached the penlight to his pistol. It still wouldn't provide much light, but now he had one hand free. As he finished, his radio emitted a quick burst of static. The sound sent a fresh bolt of adrenaline through his body…it also terrified him of what was behind him.

Pushing his fear aside, Richard walked back to where the corpse had been and saw the body was gone. Only bits of blood and flesh remained in the wire cage.

His mind reeled. It was impossible for it to be gone! He'd only been by the chains for a minute at the most, and he should have heard any attempts to remove it!

Seconds ticked by as he stared at the gruesome cage. He had no idea how long he would have stood there if a piece of the cage wouldn't have fallen to the ground. It was roughly three feet long and made of solid steel.

Reaching down to pick it up, Richard saw two other items lying behind the cage. The first was a dingy grey nurse's hat with the words Silent Hill Hospital stitched in red. The second was a bloody wedding ring.

Dropping the pipe, Richard picked up the ring and had his worst fears confirmed. Inside was his wife's name. Slashed deeply through the metal was a series of jagged scratches that formed another name atop the gently flowing cursive of his wife's.

_Keeper_

Putting the ring into a pocket, Richard hefted the pipe. It would be a better back-up weapon than the knife. Holding it tightly in his hand, Richard crossed the courtyard to search for the Keeper of the school to get his wife back.

Behind him, standing by the chained door, Walter smirked. His game was just beginning.


	7. William?

_Well, I have to admit that this chapter came as a surprise even to me. I'm sure everyone that writes knows you plan certain specifics for your character to take. Well, after getting about two of those done, this chapter began to write itself. Richard doesn't do half of what I'd thought would be in here, but I feel it still worked. _

_There have been a lot of people questioning Pyramid Head's involvement. Since he wasn't in either the first or third Silent Hill (If I just didn't see him, let me know!) so I probably won't have him in this story. Sorry, but I think Walter Sullivan will be enough for poor Richard! _

_Please note that while the fighting style Richard uses is NOT normal, it is how I know how to use a knife (a medieval style). This was done to add as much realism as possible._

_Finally, the school will not be as everyone remembers from Silent Hill. I feel that would lower the suspense, so if he's in an area that people don't recognize, that is the reason. Hopefully this won't anger any fans._

_All the best,_

_David Struve_

The door at the end of the courtyard was locked, and try as he might Richard couldn't find a key. With no other option, and with time possibly running out for his wife, he raised his foot and slammed it into the door. An incredibly loud boom rang out around him, but the door held. Two more kicks also failed to do the job, leaving Richard fearful of alerting the Keeper that Walter had spoken of.

He'd barely begun his search for Sarah, and already he was at an end. It was impossible to leave, but impossible to go forward. In desperation, he reached behind him and took the steel pipe into his left hand.

Cautiously, he set the pistol down on the ground and raised the pipe over his head. With all the noise he was making, he wasn't sure if any creatures were around. However, his radio only crackled slightly so he decided he had a few seconds to be lightly armed.

With a loud grunt, Richard brought the steel pipe down as hard as he could on the doorknob. A metallic CLANG resounded through the courtyard as steel met brass, but he was rewarded with the sight of the doorknob landing softly on the brick steps leading to the door.

The door was unlocked, and Richard had just crouched to pick up his pistol when the static on his radio flared, going from a slight crackle to a full roar in less than a second.

Only his luck in crouching at that moment kept Richard from death, as the door exploded into splinters around him and a dark, blurry form came hurtling through. Richard felt the swish of something coming dangerously close to his face, and then felt a searing heat in his shoulder as the same something ripped bloody scratches through his clothing.

Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Richard kept searching for the pistol. Pushing aside several chunks of door, he finally found it in a pile of splinters.

At the same time his hand closed around it, he heard a low growling from behind him. Much as he'd done against Walter, he turned and fired in the same motion. This time, however, there was only a metallic click as the weapon tried to fire a dry chamber. In his haste to get away from the serial killer, he'd never checked the pistol. Now that mistake could possibly cost him his life.

Though he had no ammunition in his pistol, the penlight on the bottom still worked perfectly, revealing what had come through the door in crystalline detail.

Standing over five feet tall, the creature looked like a woman with dark lanky hair that hung down over her face. She was naked to the waist, but the sight sparked no arousal in Richard, only that same sense of nausea he'd felt when looking at the corpse, for strips of flesh looked to have been ripped from her ribs and breasts leaving jagged and bleeding slashes.

The bones in her elbows had long ago been broken, sending a jagged stub through each arm that now served as a weapon. Just as deadly were the razor-sharp fingernails that were cracked and broken on her hand, four of them crimson with Richard's blood.

A dirty pair of flowered pants protected her lower body, but didn't hide the fact that her knees bent in the wrong direction, broken bones grinding with each movement. Even her shoes had been slashed and torn, showing the same kind of claws that her hands had.

As Richard bent down for the steel pipe the creature looked at him and snarled, revealing eyes filled with milky cataracts and a mouthful of broken teeth. Again, he was reminded of his days reading urban legends, though this time he was able to remember where the creature had come from.

Richard was face to face with how he'd imagined the Jersey Devil to look.

He saw it, yet he didn't believe it. The creature in front of him was only something that was supposed to exist in the darkest corner of his mind, yet the sight of it sparked a faint memory in his mind. It was the briefest flash of a long hidden event, gone nearly before he'd realized what it was.

Now, though, he had no time to reminisce. The pipe was near the right leg of the creature, and so Richard had no choice but to draw his knife. The handle fit easily into his hand, blade pointing downward and the hilt against his pinky.

He knew that he'd only get one chance to attack the creature. If he missed or was a single inch off in his blow, it would only be seriously wounded and able to rip him to shreds. Nothing about this seemed real and he wanted only to pinch himself and wake up, but the burning in his shoulder and the blood trickling down his arm were proof enough.

The creature very nearly didn't give him a chance to even strike, for in a strike as fast as lightning it bent its legs behind it and flew at Richard. The pistol in his hand illuminated its move in almost slow-motion as the Jersey Devil closed the gap between them.

Purely on instinct, Richard dropped his feet from underneath him, going from nearly six feet tall to half that size instantly. At the same time, he brought his left hand up and flipped his wrist over. As the creature missed him by inches, the knife ripped a bloody trail across its stomach. The wound wasn't fatal, nor was it deep enough to gut it, but from the scream the Jersey Devil emitted, terribly painful.

They both regained their feet at nearly the same moment, but now the creature was more cautious of what Richard could do. Not willing to waste this moment he launched his own attack, bringing the butt of his pistol down hard in a strike to the creature's head. This attack wasn't meant to do anything, but the creature fell for the feint and slashed hard at the black steel.

The next thing it felt was Richard slamming his shoulder into it, throwing it backwards and sending it tumbling end over end to try regain its balance. The creature couldn't understand why all the strength seemed to have gone out from its legs, or why it felt no more pain. Then, in a gurgling scream, it died.

Richard stumbled to the creature, reached down, and pulled the knife from its neck. He'd used the momentum of his body slam to jab the knife deeply into the jugular of the creature. While he didn't know its anatomy perfectly, he could be sure that a ruined neck would end the life of anything on earth.

With hands that hadn't been steady for a very long time, Richard reloaded the Beretta and wiped the knife off on the creature's already dingy clothing. He found the steel pipe amid the wreckage of the door and again strapped it to his back.

While his radio told him that there were other creatures around, he took the time to examine the creature one last time. It was important that he knew any possible weak points it might have.

Other than a few large splinters under its fingernails, probably caused by it smashing the door, and numerous unexplained scars…he found nothing. Unable to put it off any longer, Richard picked his way through the door and back into the school.

Almost immediately he was struck by the smell of mold and decay. It flooded his nostrils and smelled surprisingly like rotten fruit. He walked quietly through the dusty corridors, leaving his footprints on the ground behind him.

His only light was the now weakening glow of his penlight, and all it could only show a few yards in front of Richard. Even the radio on his side didn't help, rising and falling so quickly in static that he looked over his shoulder almost constantly.

At the next intersection, Richard saw rows of metal lockers lining the walls in every direction. From the earlier fury he'd seen from the Jersey Devils, Richard hadn't expected the school to be spotless, but he'd never imagined the fury that he now saw.

Jagged shards of metal protruded from the lockers where doors had been ripped off. The opposites of those shards had been jammed through the walls and doors, leaving shards of wood lying around on the floor. Several of the locker doors had been rammed through other lockers, showing the brute strength of the creatures.

"Who are you?" A voice behind him asked.

Richard whirled and put his pistol to the head of a janitor that had suddenly come up behind him. The man showed nearly no fear at the Beretta that had appeared in front of his face. Like the rest of the school he looked old and decayed, his clothing torn and tattered from years of wear. Blood spattered the bottom of his overalls, and the water in the mop-bucket beside him was bloody.

"It can't be!" The Janitor gasped. "William, you've come back to Silent Hill after all these years!" Tears shown in his eyes as Richard looked at him curiously.

"You have me confused with someone else." He said finally. "My name is Richard."

"No." The Janitor said vehemently, shaking his head furiously. "You promised to come back and save me William, and here you are! You know how long I've waited…first Sarah and now you!"

"Sarah!" Richard said. "Where is she?"

The Janitor lowered his head to his chest. "I'm afraid I don't know William. The Keeper has her now and there's nothing I can do about that."

"Take me to the Keeper." Richard said.


	8. The Keeper

_Ok, I'll admit it. This chapter is for Saddened Soul. The rest should be pretty self-explanatory. The only other point I want to make is that some descriptions are thinly veiled attempts to describe the creatures from Silent Hill 2 (especially towards the end.) While I didn't want to put them in the story as creatures, who's to say what Richard finds?_

"I can't take you to the Keeper!" The Janitor gasped. "You don't know how powerful he is! If he kills you I won't be able to escape!"

Richard sighed. "What's your name?" He'd tried to read it from the man's uniform earlier, but the lack of light and intense grime on the man's clothing had stopped him.

"That's not like you William." The man said frowning. "It's me, Charles! How could you have forgotten like that?"

"For the last time, I'm not William!" Richard said much too loudly for the situation he was in. In response, the radio flared slightly and the static began to grow steadily.

The Janitor looked at Richard with surprise as a steady stream of expletives came from his mouth. "That's not like you either William!" He breathed finally.

"We need to move." Richard whispered as he pointed the Beretta behind him. "We need to move NOW!" There was not the slightest chance that he wanted to have a pitched battle with more than one of those creatures in his lifetime, and from the sound of the radio there were several moving towards him.

"I think you've got a busted walkie-talkie William." The Janitor said, brushing his uniform off. "Either that or a bad channel…urgh!"

Richard had heard enough. With a sudden burst of speed, he grabbed the Janitor's hand and jerked the old man around. Together they ran down the hallway, Richard leading and the Janitor stumbling after him.

"What are you doing William?" He asked several times. "Stop running! Old Charles's bones won't take this abuse! Why won't you slow down?"

With him nearly dragging Charles behind and having to try nearly every door to see if it was unlocked, the creatures caught up with them before Richard found an unlocked door. A scream of rage was all the warning they had before three of the creatures ripped through the darkness, fingers extended to rip both men to shreds.

"Get this door open!" Richard screamed before opening fire, the penlight being eclipsed by the bursts of fire from the barrel. Shots ripped the school apart, missed bullets sending shards of metal and splinters of wood flying through the air. Two of the Jersey Devils fell back screaming in pain as the flying shrapnel ripped through them, the other surged forward and jumped over Richard, its target being the Janitor.

The ragged claws found their target only an instant before Richard was able to put a bullet into the creature. Ten bloody slashes appeared on the Janitor's face and throat before the Jersey Devil's chest exploded in gunfire.

With no time to see how badly the Janitor was hurt, Richard turned his attention back to the other two creatures to see them running back down the hall. Three more shots from his pistol brought one down, but the other managed to escape.

Ejecting the nearly empty clip from his weapon, Richard slammed in a fresh one and only then did he turn and see how his "friend" was.

The Janitor had taken a claw to the face, and one across the throat. While he would survive the one that had cut his face, the other one had shredded his throat and left a small gurgling noise in his throat.

With the Janitor dead, Richard had no idea what he had meant by calling him William. He could only imagine that he'd been in a different delusional world than anyone else around him. The man had barely registered the gunshots nor had he had anything to say about the bloody water and destruction around him.

Still, Richard hadn't been able to avoid liking the man in the few minutes he'd known him, and he had certainly deserved more than the painful death he'd received. It was a shame, but one that Richard couldn't have avoided.

Trying to avoid looking at the man's now ruined face, Richard searched his pockets trying to find keys. Most of the doors he'd tried on his desperate run had been locked or jammed. Hopefully the Janitor would have some keys on him that would take care of that.

His search paid off, and in the man's lower left hip pocket was a bulging key-ring. On a whim, Richard flipped through the dozens of keys and found one in particular that interested him.

"Weapons locker?" He asked aloud. "What does a school need with a weapons locker?"

The dead man gave no answer, something that Richard was eternally thankful for, and so Richard had no choice but to stand and return up the hallway. He'd seen a few posters that he thought might help him on his run down that direction, but now would have more than a fleeting glimpse to investigate them.

He struck the jackpot halfway back up the hallway from where he'd begun his run. A grungy map of the school was plastered on the wall for guests, along with several locations marked. A yellowed star marked Richard's present location, and while he couldn't see a weapons locker he did find several places he wanted to go.

The first on his list also happened to be the closest. Down in the basement he saw the plans for a boiler room. He hoped that if he went down there he could manage to turn on the electricity. While he was nervous about finding any more Jersey Devils or even the Keeper, he knew he'd stand more of a chance with more than just a failing penlight that now needed batteries in the worst way.

Walking back to the third door on his right, Richard checked several keys until he found one that said **First Floor Stairwell**. It fit easily into the door lock and clicked gently. With a fast motion Richard opened the door and swept the pistol across the room. The dimming light revealed nothing besides twin staircases, one leading up and the other leading down.

Going to the second floor was out of the question, something had cleaved through the concrete stairs, collapsing them after the sixth and leaving them broken until what Richard thought was the fifteenth. It was too far for him to jump, and also wouldn't help him get the lights back on. As quickly as he'd cleared the room, Richard moved down the staircase sweeping the light in front of him with every step.

From above him, Richard heard a faint skittering noise. Jerking the pistol overhead, he saw nothing that interested him at the moment. He did notice that even the ceiling had been gouged to splinters by the Jersey Devils. Several locker doors had been jammed through it also, showing their remarkable strength.

_'It could have just been a spider.' _ He tried to tell himself. _'But I really don't want to meet the spider that puts out that much noise.'_

Knowing that he was wide open in the stairwell, he continued moving down the stairs to the boiler room. Along the way he saw only the same decay and destruction that he was becoming numb to. The thought that it was beginning to leave him unaffected both thrilled and terrified him.

As he made the final stair, he heard a loud scraping sound coming from behind the door to the boiler room. He quietly moved to the door and peered through a gap in the planked boards. Any previous thought he'd had of becoming adapted to Silent Hill quickly faded into horror.

A creature that could only be the Keeper stood beyond the door. It stood immensely tall, what Richard could only guess as seven to eight feet tall. The scraping noise he had heard before came from the gigantic cleaver it held in both hands, it was so large that the tip drug on the floor, casting sparks out as the creature moved.

Bodies lay strewn in various stages of death around the room, several impaled on meat hooks on the wall. Many still twitched from their brutal murder from the insanely large cleaver. Yet the creature in the middle of the room ignored the carnage, instead using the blade to quarter the bodies and throw them into a large furnace in the middle of the room. With each swing of the large weapon blood spurted around the room, drenching his already dripping clothing. Only a few spots showed their original dingy white color.

Still the most surprising part of the creature was a large steel pyramid that covered its head, nearly half as tall as the creature itself. Richard had no explanation of what kept the pyramid from crushing the creature's shoulders into powder, but again his memory sparked briefly at the sight of the creature…one that he now knew the name of. They were the servants of Sammael himself, and known as Pyramid Heads.

The Pyramid Head was the Keeper and somewhere in that room was Sarah. Richard knew that he would have to enter the boiler room, would have to fight the creature amid the bodies, and would have to defeat it…somehow.

He knew the insane power of the creature, had watched it cleave lengthways down a body with its massive blade. Pyramid Head was supernaturally strong, holding the weapon with only one hand. Even though Pyramid Head used two to swing it, the cleaver would be almost impossible for Richard to use even if he happened to have four arms.

With a deep breath, Richard turned off his penlight. It would serve no purpose in the furnace room. He also took off his leather jacket, placing it on the floor next to him. While it would get dirty it had already proved that it wouldn't stop the Jersey Devil's claws and the chances of it stopping the cleaver seemed immensely slim.

He moved behind the wall and crouched down, checking how much ammo he had ready. Two clips, including the one in his pistol, were full and the third was almost empty. Pulling a box of ammo out of the jacket lying on the floor, Richard quickly began to reload the third clip. He'd nearly finished when his shaking hands dropped a bullet, sending it to hit the concrete floor with a metallic PING.

A quick glance assured him that the Keeper was still doing its job with the bodies. It had set the cleaver down and was now throwing two sets of legs into the furnace the damage to the bodies causing them to jerk a twitch grotesquely.

Richard had turned his head and put the last three bullets in the clip when he heard the sparks from the cleaver again. The creature was moving again, though the sound wasn't coming any closer. Reaching for the bullet that had fallen from his hand, Richard suddenly heard the cleaver leave the ground.

Diving forward, he felt the air rush just over his legs as the cleaver smashed through the wall, slashing lengthways the entire distance. Had Richard still been crouching the attack would have cut him in half.

Rolling over, he saw the cleaver slash through the wall twice more, collapsing a ten foot section of the brick. There, backlit by the furnace was a creature that looked invincible.

"My turn!" Richard shouted through clenched teeth, ignoring the burning pain that shot through his shoulder. He raised the pistol and opened fire, sending bullets spiraling into Pyramid Head. Each bullet struck flesh, sending the creature jerking backwards in a macabre dance.

After countless booms in the darkness, Richard squeezed the trigger to a dry click. In a flash he dropped the steaming empty to the floor and slammed in a fresh one. The room again became deafening as bullets again slammed into the still standing Keeper.

With the last shot from that clip, Pyramid Head teetered and collapsed to the floor. Putting his final clip into the weapon, Richard walked into the furnace room through the hole in the wall. Pyramid Head lay on the ground several feet in front of him, cleaver beside him.

On the chance that thirty bullets hadn't killed the Keeper, Richard reached down and drug the weapon away from his side. He had been wrong on the weight, and while it still was heavy beyond imagining, he was able to move it.

He was still moving it when the Keeper stirred on the ground. As the gargantuan stood, Richard saw that no blood leaked from the bullet wounds on its body instead they showed smoking black holes in the bloody smock it wore.

As the creature gained its feet, it reached back behind it and pulled a jagged metal spear from behind the furnace. The weapon was nearly as tall as the Keeper was, and also stained with blood, rust, and decay.

With a roar, the Keeper charged Richard. He had no chance of avoiding the weapon, taken completely off guard as he was by the speed of the creature without the heavy cleaver.

Richard felt a punch in his gut, and looked down to see the spear jammed through the left side of his stomach, pinning him to the wall. With adrenaline pumping through his veins, he screamed and brought the cleaver up. With all the strength he had left in his body he swing it across, catching Pyramid Head in the swing.

He watched as the Keeper stumbled backwards and fell apart, arms dropping off its body and its torso sliding off from its legs. The metal pyramid on its head smashed into the floor with a metal clang, splitting the boards and allowing the upper body to fall through to a lower basement. Several bodies tumbled after the creature, one even rolling to the furnace and catching fire.

Pain finally began to flare out from Richard's body, the spear pinning him to the wall finally registering in his brain. Blood ran down his left leg, pooling on the floor.

From his right side the radio flared again just as a Jersey Devil crept into the room. At some point Richard had dropped the pistol and he couldn't find the strength to raise the huge cleaver again. As the creature drew closer his vision began to blur and he waited for the painful end.

The final thing he saw was the creature jerk from a blow behind it. Just as blackness overtook him he heard a very familiar voice say something.

"Let's get you to the hospital 'Richard'." Walter Sullivan hissed. "I think the nurses will be interested in you."

Then the world went black.


	9. The past revealed

_Hopefully this chapter will answer the questions that have been plaguing people with this story…what are Richard's lies? What was Walter's game? It's all here._

Pain blurred Richard's vision as he slowly regained consciousness. He could vaguely remember an image of a demon standing in front of a body strewn room, backlit by horrendous flames. He screamed at the memory, but all that escaped his mouth was a scarce whisper.

Beside him, a motion drew his attention and he saw a dingy grey uniform disappearing into the gloom of his room. Two tubes ran into his arm, one attached to an IV that led to a bottle of crimson blood, and the other led to what he assumed was a saline drip.

The bedspread around him was as decayed as everything else in the town of Silent Hill, threadbare and stained with blood. He didn't want to lift the sheet and see how much of it was his own, but from the glistening look of it as the light hit the stains, much of it was.

"Back among the living 'Richard'." A snide voice asked from behind his head. "Are you ready for me to explain a few things, 'Richard'?"

"Walter." Richard managed to rasp. "What are you talking about?"

"I've figured it out Richard." Walter said coldly as he walked into view. A single strip of white gauze wound around his elbow, with a single dot of red staining it directly in the center of his arm. "You asked me before why I didn't just kill you outright, and I told you it was because of a certain quality I wanted to figure out about you." He chuckled, the sound sending chills down Richard's back. "Well, I figured it out and I must say I'm terribly disappointed in you Richard...or should I say William?"

"Why are you calling me William?" A confused Richard rasped. "It's the same name Charles called me earlier."

Walter silently pulled a chair up beside the bed and sat in it. The decaying wood creaked loudly but held the man's weight. Despite the haggard look of Walter's clothing and hair, his face was lit with what looked to Richard like joy. More than anything in the room, that fact disturbed him. Long minutes passed as the two men studied each other.

"Have you ever heard of a town known as Ashfield?" Walter asked suddenly, breaking the silence in the room. "Though there isn't a reason to answer my question, and in fact I doubt you could at this point. Your throat probably is very raw from dehydration."

"I grew up in Ashfield…did you know that Richard?" Walter asked casually, saying the facts without the barest hint of emotion. "At least I stayed in an apartment for a while with my mother." His voice broke slightly, and Richard easily detected a hidden sorrow in his face. Whatever had happened to Walter during his stay in Ashfield was enough to even test the serial killer's limits.

"I tried to get my apartment back a few years ago. A man named Henry Townsend was living there. Does that name sound familiar Richard? "

"It was on that note you left me." Richard said weakly, knowing that there was no point in lying to his captor. "Something about how he couldn't escape through the chained door for days."

Walter's eyes sparkled at the words and he took a deep breath, face bordering on ecstasy. "Yes." He said. "I used that same trick to try take my apartment back." His face darkened dramatically, going from joy to anger in the span of a second. "But in order to take it back Henry would have to experience my past. He would have to delve inside my mind and survive the experience. Only if he survived it all would he get a single chance to defeat me."

Richard stared at Walter in awe, trying to digest what he was being told. "Henry beat you, didn't he?" He finally asked incredulously.

"He did." Walter said much more calmly than Richard would have expected. "Somehow, despite all the odds in my favor, Henry destroyed my mind in a single day of struggling to escape his apartment."

The serial killer stood and began to pace the room. Six steps took him from one side of the room to the other and Richard counted forty steps before Walter began to talk again.

"What Henry might not have known, is that while he managed to escape his apartment, he locked me forever in the same type of hell I'd put him through. I had to struggle to remain alive as I was forced to live through the most difficult times in my life over and over again." He stepped back into Richard's frame of vision, lowering his head until it was scarce inches from Richard's face. "Then, you saved me Richard."

Surprise was evident on Richard's face. "How did I save you?"

Walter looked directly into Richard's eyes. "Have you ever been to Ashfield before?"

Richard's response was instantaneous. "No."

Shock entered Walter's eyes. "You don't even know." He said as he fell backwards into the creaky chair. "Your entire life is a lie and you don't even know anymore!"

"What are you talking about?" Richard asked hesitantly.

"Richard Asbury, AKA William Bernshaw. You were orphaned at the age of five and taken to the same Silent Hill orphanage I was."

"If that's true, why didn't you remember me when you first saw me?" Richard demanded.

"You of all people should know that the orphanage wasn't the place you made friends. If a child was weak or not deemed worthy for The Order…they were killed. Do you know what happened to you if you were killed in the orphanage?"

The spark of memory that Richard had felt during his trek through Silent Hill suddenly exploded. He could finally remember everything that had been carefully hidden from him.

"We ate them." He said, tears beginning to form in his eyes. "There were rumors about a room behind the kitchen used for cutting up the dead and putting them in a stew. Only a chosen few were ever told about it."

"That's right." Walter said. "The only four to survive the orphanage; Jeremiah Linving, Sarah Carthage, myself, and you…only you weren't Richard Asbury at that time. You were William Bernshaw, the youngest apprentice The Order has ever seen."

"Why couldn't I remember that?" Richard asked, tears beginning to leak down his face. "Why was it blocked from me?"

The pacing that Walter had stopped earlier began again as he explained what had happened. "After Sarah and Jeremiah left, the order was sent spiraling into chaos. The four of us had been chosen to be the leaders which would bring Silent Hill to its full glory." He shook his head, not even pausing in his pacing. "At that point I was already becoming disenchanted with how The Order worked. I'd been trained as their assassin for to long to not be let in on more secrets than either Jeremiah or Sarah. Everything they had only found out about that caused Harry to bring about the end of Silent Hill I'd known about for almost a year."

"So why did you keep serving them?" Richard wondered aloud.

"They were the only thing I'd ever known, but soon that would end. You were given a mission to track down Sarah and Jeremiah for the purpose of leading The Order to them. Sammael himself blessed you in your quest, and you went happily on your way. Ten years passed before you had to admit defeat. The two traitors had far too much knowledge of The Order's inner workings to ever be caught. Yet you didn't give up. You returned to Silent Hill and found it in ruins."

Richard gasped. "Yes, when I came back I found that something had happened to nearly destroy The Order. Our goddess had been murdered, and the town was becoming included in the media."

"You were given no choice, were you?" Walter asked.

"I began to rituals to seal the town away. Only those that still had business left unfinished in Silent Hill could ever return. It took another long year, but finally everything was prepared and overnight Silent Hill disappeared."

A small chuckle came from beside the bed. "But there was a side-effect not mentioned in the texts, wasn't there?"

"The ritual nearly destroyed my memories of Silent Hill. They began to fade as the days passed."

Walter stopped his pacing, and faced Richard again. "You had no one to turn to, and everything you knew was fading quickly away from you, wasn't it?" At Richard's nod he continued. "Yet despite all that you'd forgotten there was one ritual that still stayed embedded in your mind. You knew how to bind a spirit to you…almost a guardian angel."

There was nothing Richard could say, merely to nod.

"But there was no one left. During your time in Silent Hill you'd heard of my death, but I'd made a mistake. I'd shared one bit of information with you that you were able to use. I'd told you that I'd lived in Ashfield. All you had to do was go to Henry's apartment and link yourself to me."

Understanding finally flooded Richard's mind. "I told you everything I could remember about my mission and then performed the ritual to resurrect you. I forgot a portion of the ritual though."

A deep laugh escaped Walter's mouth. "You forgot the most important part! There were no restrictions that limited me to time or place! I could go anywhere I wanted to, whenever I wanted to. The ritual gave me all the benefits of the demonic energies: invincibility, immortality, enhanced speed and strength…I could even appear wherever you were at will!"

"But why didn't Sarah and Father Jeremiah ever recognize me? I know they remembered Silent Hill…and why didn't I ever remember before this?"

"Ahhhhh, that's the question isn't it?" Walter mocked. "Perhaps they did recognize you. It had been almost 12 years since they'd seen you last, so it probably took them awhile for the resemblance to catch their eye, but once they did they realized that you'd forgotten everything about your former life. You were working at a normal job, had a different name, and had even begun attending a different church…all thanks to me of course. Sarah agreed to marry you with the understanding that now she could keep an eye on you and possibly find out how to bring down Silent Hill for good. Those rituals are in your head, and it would be infinitely valuable to get them. All the texts are long since destroyed from Heather's destruction of Sammael."

"Sammael was destroyed!" Richard tried to yell, but the loudest noise he could make was a low whisper.

"Long dead, my friend, long dead. Harry's daughter did what he couldn't do…but we're getting off the subject, aren't we? You were married to Sarah for nine years, and then all this happened. I've been waiting for you to return, to complete your mission. You're close now, and all you have to do is kill Sarah."

Richard stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, weighing his options. One part of him screamed for him to complete his mission that he'd been on for over twenty years, while the other remembered the nine wonderful years with Sarah. He remembered the ceremonies of Sammael, and the ceremony that had linked him to Sarah as husband and wife.

Finally, he came to a decision. "I can't do it Walter."

"So you've decided to remain Richard." Walter said, a hint of sadness in his voice. "You've given me no choice then. With Pyramid Head killed, I can now assume my position as the most powerful person in Silent Hill, and I think it's finally time I take over The Order. You could have done it, you know. You could have brought The Order back to its fullest potential."

"I can't do that Walter. I can't betray Sarah."

Walter stood and walked to the door. "In the room above you is a heavy slab with knives on the bottom. In three hours it will fall through the ceiling and kill you. You'll have three hours to change your mind. I'll know if you call for me, and can save you." He placed a small alarm clock that had been resting near the door on the chair in the center of the room. "When this goes off the slab falls. I'd recommend giving me at least fifteen minutes to save you…It's been nice knowing you William."

Then he was gone, leaving Richard to live with his past.


	10. Walter Sullivan

_I just want everyone to know that I have no plans on ending this story before (at least) chapter twenty. Now, however, I'll be taking a break from Richard and letting you all enjoy some of the other sites of Silent Hill. Also, just to be clear on the subject, Richard will be called both William and Richard…this will depend on the person talking to him, and which "side" of Silent Hill they fight on._

_This story was a challenge to write, I wanted to try write one about Walter and I feel I succeeded well. There is much more to him than the serial killer personality and I wanted to emphasize that. To do so, I ventured back to my original style of writing…fantasy. While this isn't a true fantasy story, I'm sure you can see the elements. Also, fans of the series will see a very familiar weapon. I believe it's the trademark weapon of Silent Hill. Also I managed to write an entire story without using dialogue…a difficult achievement. Enjoy!_

Silent Hill Hospital, a subsidiary of Brookhaven Mental Hospital, sat on top of a hill on the outskirts of the city. When it had been built back in the early 1900's, it had been a celebration of how the town was advancing in the world. Of course, few had known that the hospital served a duel purpose.

Those without family or had few friends never seemed to survive their stay at the hospital. While there were a few that lived, mainly to draw suspicion away from those that didn't, the large majority were brought still living to an underground passageway that linked the hospital to The Order's headquarters.

The unfortunate people brought to the headquarters were always sacrificed in excruciating ways, being either an example or the center of an elaborate ritual. Most of the rituals had been lost, however, due to circumstances befalling the town.

Valuable texts had been incinerated by the wrath of Sammael against Harry, and the problem was further compounded by Richard's failure. Finally, when Heather destroyed the born infant-demon incarnation of Sammael, she had razed the head library of The Order. Some might call it luck that allowed the oldest and most important rituals to survive, Walter Sullivan called it fate.

The ritual of succession, most powerful of all the rituals able to be performed by an adept cultist still had records of the necessary ingredients and procedures. It was also in the most heavily populated place in Silent Hill. It sat in a vault able to be opened by only one given clearance by the Master of The Order. A single code word had to be spoken. A spell ensured that even under torture an adept could not speak the word to an unworthy one.

Walter Sullivan was an adept. It was in that vault that he'd first seen the beginning for the Holy Mother Ritual, and known that he must try to perform it. While Henry Townsend had ruined that particular ritual, Walter still had another chance to gain the full backing of The Order.

Unfortunately, he would be forced to pass through the most monster-infested zones of Silent Hill. He'd found William's Beretta lying amid the bodies in the boiler room, but there was something else that had caught his eye down amid the carnage.

William had brought a knife.

Walter had never sullied himself by using a gun. At even the mention of that word he snorted in disgust. Guns were the weapons of the unskilled, of those that had never developed their instincts. Walter had honed those skills and instincts repeatedly, drawing upon reservoirs of inner strength countless times until he nearly believed himself to be the god he was in Silent Hill.

Iknalth devandrianda ichiba, the Dark Wing of The Order, had been founded by Walter himself. It was a secretive sect even among those that had called themselves Master of The Order. Its very name was whispered in dark corners and mouthed in horror when the town had turned dark, for it were those that had sold themselves to Walter and his own brand of justice that had become the monsters that now infested the town. They had once been people, but now were shades of their former selves.

Among the Dark Wing, Walter had stood paramount. He was both respected and feared, commanding respect with his presence and ensuring his survival by his skill. Only the Keeper would have been able to completely destroy him, and now William had kindly defeated the only threat Walter would have in Silent Hill.

Yet he wouldn't be able to fully re-gain control of the Dark Wing until he became the new Master of The Order. Only this time he would stand supreme, not bowing to any power in Silent Hill. The creatures would worship him as if he were Sammael himself. Walter would rule with an unstoppable force behind him.

The thought brought a grin to his face, twisting his face into an even more appalling specter. Within the hour he would have the means to bring down even the Christian Church…and he planned to. Yet he would not impose the power of Sammael on the masses, but rather cast down the idols of the false religions and raise ones of his semblance.

Now though, he had to ensure he could reach the vault. A veritable host of creatures stood between him and his goal. The grin never left his face as he reversed the grip on his knife and opened the door to the tunnel linking the hospital to the headquarters.

Without pausing he stepped into the pitch blackness and closed the door behind him, wincing only at the loud click of the lock as it sealed him in. Just inside the door, his free hand found the package he'd left years before. After opening the package he removed the only item inside, a leather trench coat.

The pockets were filled with various trinkets that would help him in his mission. Two had particular value to him, the first being a bag of, what seemed to be, marbles. In reality they were filled with magnesium and phosphorus. When smashed on the ground they produced a blinding flash of white light. While not overly useful above ground they would be invaluable in the dark gloom of Silent Hill.

The second was the knife presented to him on his commissioning date. Ornately carved and inlayed with precious metal, the blade was ten inches long with a slight curve to it. Only one edge was sharpened, but had been inlayed with a special brand of steel that hadn't lost its edge in the ten years since he'd left the package. Wrapped in the back of the coat, secured by several ties, was its matching counterpart, a full length Japanese katana that he'd used in several missions during his earlier days. '_Silent Hill wouldn't be complete without a katana.'_ He thought smugly to himself.

After strapping the two weapons around his waist, Walter dropped the Ka-bar to the ground, smirking at the loud resonating PING it made as it stuck in the wooden floors.

He didn't flinch at the sound of the scratching creatures it brought, merely widened his grin and dropped into a crouch.

The creature that Richard had called the Jersey Devil screamed at Walter as it crawled along the wall, fingernails ripping through the rot and decay into the wooden planking of the walls.

Still blind in the dark, Walter relied on sound alone. He heard the final scratch as the Devil threw its feet out and launched itself towards him. Instinct dropped his left leg out from underneath him at the same time he brought his right arm up in an arc, wakizashi blade held tightly in his fist.. Just as quickly as he'd moved earlier, he reversed the swing catching the creature twice before it had half-completed its jump.

The knife bit deeply, sinking into the Devil's chest and ripping bloody furrows through its flesh. Again it screamed, this time in agony, as Walter went into a sudden flurry. Blows rained down on the screaming demon from all directions, each leaving another slash in its skin.

Long after the Jersey Devil had stopped screaming, Walter finished attacking it. Over the previous weeks he'd worked up much more frustration than normal. Now that he'd worked that out of his system he was ready to continue on down the passageway.

Leaving the corpse behind him he walked casually down the blackened hall. His eyes still hadn't adjusted to the lack of light, but it wasn't the first time he'd ever been forced to carry out a mission in blackness. He was the one chosen to lead the Dark Wing and The Order. He would find no fear in the night.

As he neared an area where he knew the passageway widened out, flaring to the left and right, he stopped and listened again. At first he heard nothing, but still Walter waited. Finally, after he'd grown accustomed to his surroundings and made himself a part of the darkness, he heard the shallow breathing of two more Jersey Devils. Both were hiding in the alcove above the passageway, and from the ragged sound of their breathing they were impatient…and hungry.

Walter decided not to keep them waiting.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out two objects. The first was an orb, which he set gently down on the floor. Walter then used his knife to cut the piece of cloth he'd pulled out into strips. After tying the strip around his eyes he reached down and again picked up his knife, tucking the orb into his opposite hand at the same time.

Without a sound he slid around the wall and threw the orb down at his feet. In an instant the entire surrounding area was engulfed in white light, drawing shrieks of pain from the Devils who couldn't stand bright lights. Safe behind his blindfold, Walter followed the screams to his first victim.

Two flicks of his wrist ended its life, the first sending the knife blade sliding through the tender flesh of its throat and the second crossing barely a centimeter away, making an X.

The light of the orb had only lasted a split second, but had achieved two purposes. It had allowed Walter to kill one of the creatures, and destroyed the night vision of the other. Now that it had faded, the other Jersey Devil was fighting without sight. As he readied his knife again, Walter almost pitied it.

A short time later, he moved on, stepping cautiously to avoid the pooling blood that now covered the wooden floors.

He walked until he felt the air change, and then moved cautiously to the right. After looking at several structural schematics, he'd seen that there was a weak portion of the wall connecting the secret passage to yet another series of tunnels that led directly to the vault containing the ritual book.

Still wearing the blindfold, Walter unsheathed the katana and tapped lightly on the wall with the pommel. His calculations had been correct, and on his first tap he was rewarded with the hollow thud of the tunnels.

As he swung the katana down towards the planks, he wondered how easily it would be to slash his way through. The answer came a second later when the blade embedded itself in the floor, a perfect cut through the boards.

It took several more slashes until the hole was wide enough for him to walk through, and Walter could sense several more creatures coming towards him. From the aura they had around them, it was possible they were the smaller Chupas, but he couldn't be sure of the number without stopping and concentrating.

If he was going to set his trap for the little scavengers, he would have no time for the meditation to know exact specifications. Already he could hear their scuttling claws on the now stone floor, their eyes casting off a light glow.

With such large eyes, it would be difficult to blend into the walls as he'd done with the Jersey Devils. The glow could give him away, as well as their unnatural sense of smell.

After removing his blindfold, Walter saw just how close the creatures had come. He could make out vague shapes in the long tunnel, and knew that in a few moments they would see him. It was something he couldn't allow to happen.

Agile as ever, Walter coiled his legs underneath him and sprung upwards, kicking out on each side and catching himself in the narrow walls. The muscles in his legs groaned in protest, but he held himself firmly waiting for the correct moment.

That moment came as over twenty Chupas ran underneath him, stopping and sniffing the air for his lingering scent. From up above, Walter threw down a bottle of cologne at the same moment he dropped another orb. The cologne hit directly in the center of the small cluster, drawing all their eyes to the sound of shattering glass. The orb blinded all of them in a single burst of intense magnesium, only this one spit out burning shards of white hot phosphorus.

Shrieks echoed through the tunnels, only increasing as Walter dropped from his perch, blades whirling even before he'd hit the ground. Four of the Chupas were dead before they'd even registered the fact that Walter was amid them, lost in a swirl of steel.

The others reacted strongly to his presence, but found that without their sight and with the smell of cologne covering his scent they were helpless. Still, they bit and scratched at the air, sometimes hitting their own in the desperate struggle to get to their assailant.

Walter let them fight among themselves. When they'd tired themselves enough, he slipped back amid them and began another attack. With the wakizashi in his left hand and the katana in his right the Chupas stood little chance. Once, a single Chupa shook off the effects of the light and saw the blurred figure of Walter standing amid the dead. It made a single bite towards his hamstring, but was cut down before it had even covered half the distance.

With the Chupas dead, Walter sheathed the katana and used the wakizashi to cut one of their eyes out. The glow would last hours after their death, and he no longer had to worry about any more creatures beyond this point. After wiping the wakizashi off, he put it away and sprinted down the hallway.

The Order had placed several tripwires and traps amid the ancient stones, but Walter saw them easily. In his years of training he'd been the best there was, had even been given the Ronin Blades to signify his position.

Now he used that training against them, and he felt something akin to joy as he took the final step to the vault doors.

Thousands of hours had been spent in carving the stone to create the perfect ambience. Both doors had once been a single piece of flat stone, but over the years they had been chiseled down to ornately carved devils and demons. The names of all the Masters of The Order had been carved beneath several demons, representing that they had been taken by Sammael and brought to his side.

Walter Sullivan presented himself to the horrifically carved figure of Sammael and held his arms wide. If the dark god didn't find him worthy of entering, his planning would be in vain and he would be forced to wander Silent Hill eternally in punishment.

A single ray of crimson light suddenly sprang from the god's right eye, the left having been burned out by Harry in their struggle. The light played over Walter's body, carefully examining his face and the blades strapped around his waist.

Ten minutes passed and still the light played over his body. Suddenly, the light turned darker and Walter knew the final test had come. An intense burning pain flared in his body as the minions of Sammael burned out the impurities of his body. The pain lasted only a second, and then the doors swung open with the heavy sound of grating stone.

Upon entering the room, Walter smiled. Written on the wall was everything he needed to see.

Slashed in the stone were the words:

_Thus they exalted his name, calling him the Master of The Order. Take thine rightful position Walter Sullivan, and know that Silent Hill is now yours. _

Walter walked up the coronation corridor and turned, watching as several demons walked out of the gloom to see what new lord had summoned them. After long years of suffering, Walter Sullivan assumed the throne of Silent Hill.


	11. Sari'tunia

_I know that the last chapter sort of lost that Silent Hill Feel to it, but hopefully this one will make up for it. It adds a new character, location, and a staple creature for all the games. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Chapter 11._

_As always,_

_David Struve_

Richard lay weakened on the bed. Despite his best efforts he'd been unable to gather the strength to stand. All he could do was watch the ceiling as he imagined the knives lowering themselves closer and closer towards him.

After a half-hour he could see plaster falling from the ceiling, and after one full hour he could see the dimly gleaming blades fully extended from where he lay. He had resigned himself to the fact that he would die in Silent Hill now. His death would be terrible and his suffering immense, but he would protect Sarah.

Two hours and the knives were only three feet from his body. The bag he'd assumed to be saline proved to be a painkiller, and finished at the same time the clock struck the second hour. Walter had assured that he would feel ever millimeter of the blades.

One hour remained.

Sari'torunia, the demonic vixen of fire, was what they had called her back when she had served the darkness in Silent Hill. That was the only name she'd ever known, and it had been the name gifted to her upon surviving the orphanage. In that foul place, there had been none worthy of names. She could remember how tears of joy had streamed down her face when the Master of The Order spoke it to her. Even after leaving the city Sari'torunia had kept it with her, assuming the name Sarah Tunia Carthage.

It was only after several years of going by Sari that she'd understood that it was a double play in words. No one could deny that her fiery red hair didn't fit the role, but it also played on the speed with which she engulfed the arts of the Dark Wing.

Walter had never know that she had more than a passing interest the ways of fighting, but had been suspicious of her even then. He'd always been jealous of the trust that went on between her and Richard, and had eventually forbidden her to be taught.

A few rebellious youths had continued her training, and within a year she'd been certified as one of the Dark Wing. While she wasn't nearly as skilled as Walter, she'd been sent on a few missions and added a third meaning to her name. None escaped her fury once it was set into motion.

She'd made an exception only once, and that had been on the urging of Father Jeremiah. After leaving Silent Hill, they had been tracked for several years by an unknown figure. Sarah had been forced to kill over twenty of the Dark Wing to keep themselves safe from an entity they'd come to call The Tracker.

After eluding The Tracker for ten years it seemed that the struggle for survival had finally ended. Then she'd seen a familiar face. William Bernshaw had been sitting in a coffee shop she passed as she walked to work.

It couldn't have been a coincidence. She was living in a town of only 4,000 and the odds of him just happening to pass through were astonishing. He would have been killed at that moment except Father Jeremiah had made her promise to not kill any that could give them information on the town. Who better to capture than the youngest adept and favorite to be Master of The Order?

Or so they had thought. Only after she'd confronted him did she discover that he went by the name Richard Asbury, and had absolutely no memory of Silent Hill or the atrocities that had happened there. Someone had implanted a false set of memories, covering from the age of five through present day. As far as Richard knew he had been born in New York and moved to the Midwest after his parents were killed in a car accident. His remaining family had died while he was in college for a degree in Religious Symbolism.

Originally, she and Father Jeremiah had wanted her close to him only to ensure this wasn't another ploy to discover their plans. Over time, however, she'd seen that without The Order controlling him; 'Richard' was a pleasant person to be around.

That had been almost ten years ago and though there had been a few problems with the past, it hadn't consumed them until a few days ago. Sarah had seen an article in the paper talking about murders in the area around where Silent Hill had once stood.

Richard hadn't been able to understand why she'd felt so strongly about going back to the town and in part she was glad. That meant that whoever had put his new memories in also wanted to ensure he wouldn't become the person he once was. The other part was sad because she was finally going where he couldn't.

Today marked the third day she'd spent dodging the creatures of Silent Hill. At first, she'd brought enough equipment to decimate a small town. Riot shotguns, a military style PSG-1 rifle, Uzis converted to automatic fire, twin 9mm pistols, a .45 Desert Eagle, high explosives, and enough ammunition to bring down almost anything in the city.

Now, she was down to only a few dozen shots for one pistol, seven shotgun shells, a full clip of .45 ammo, and one bullet for the rifle. The rest had been used either escaping from large amounts of smaller creatures, from the demons, or in the case of the explosives planted strategically around the city.

There was only one building she hadn't set the explosives in yet, quite possibly the most dangerous building in Silent Hill…the Hospital.

Richard could smell the rust and metal of the knives, could see the stains on several of them from sacrifices. In the background the clock ticked, each second counting off in staccato rhythm.

Two feet.

Sarah carried only the 9mm handgun and shotgun, preferring to leave everything else in the lobby of the hospital. With a shoulder holster for the pistol, and a rigged back strap for the shotgun, it was easy to carry both at the same time. Unfortunately, the rifle had been damaged by a creature, destroying the strap on it. With only one bullet left, there was little Sarah could do with it besides wait for the right time.

Now she had the shotgun in both hands, sweeping it carefully from side-to-side as she crept through the darkened hellhole that had once been Brookhaven Hospital. This was where Alessa had been tortured endlessly for years and where Sarah had finally decided that The Order was purely evil.

Now she was being forced to return.

Only this time it was different. The florescent lights no longer cast a silvery glow over the polished tile floors. Innocent nurses didn't walk the halls making their rounds, and the white-washed walls no longer sparkled. Even the antiseptic smell had been replaced by one of blood and death.

Instead of the hospital she remembered, Sarah saw one where the halogen light strapped to the shotgun was the only thing keeping her from perfect darkness. It illuminated the scratches and horrors that had happened after she'd left.

There had been rumors that Alessa had taken her revenge on the town by drawing everyone into Dark Hill. If that was true, it explained the corpses strewn around town and the creatures. Yet there were also rumors that Midwich School, Brookhaven Hospital, and The Order's Headquarters were the worst. Before she had doubted that it could be any worse than other sites…now she knew better.

Blood was liberally splashed along the walls, with unintelligible words written underneath. Papers covered with crusted red lay everywhere, scattered along shattered desks, littering the floor, and stuffed into every crevice and crack in the walls. The parts of the wall not spattered with crimson showed cracking paint and bare stone underneath.

Deep cuts marred the walls, some caused by scalpels but others from fingernails being repeatedly drug along the stone in a never-ending agony. Whoever had made them had suffered mind-numbing horror and pain.

'_This cannot end well.'_ Sarah thought to herself. She'd faced several lesser demons, even managed to destroy one permanently…but this was a different kind of creature. Anything in the hospital would have long ago been driven insane by pain and rage. For the first time since she'd entered Silent Hill, Sarah was truly terrified.

The shotgun clacked twice as she double-checked her count of the shells inside. She'd been correct on her first count, and now she wondered about whether seven shells would be enough. The demon had taken nearly fourteen before dying permanently, but she hoped that it would be an exception.

Creeping further into the hospital, she passed under an ornately carved marble arch. Slashed deeply into the heavy stone were words that chilled her more than the mist outside.

'**God help us!' **One carving read.** 'Mercy!' **Another.Perhaps the worst was simply** 'Make the pain stop!'**

Just after the arch was the nurse's reception station. Inside the thin glass was what had been meant to be a small sanctuary where those on duty could take a fast breather while others scrambled to do their duties. Sarah had been there several times and seen enough nurses taking advantage of the facility to know it had been a perfect idea.

Now, however, the darkened and enclosed room merely served to provide another shelter for whatever creatures could be roaming the building. Sarah took no comfort in the thought that there might not be any. Despite the fact that one had to cross the hospital to get to almost any location, many creatures would be drawn to the building because of the pain and suffering it entailed.

She was pleasantly surprised that nothing rocketed out of the darkened windows as she drew closer to them. Only a few yards separated her from the front door of the station when the doorknob rattled, a quick and violent burst that caused the windowpane to rattle. One of the peeling letters on the pane fell at the shaking, leaving it to say S l t ill urse at on. Sarah couldn't tell what it had originally said, nor could she remember.

With the windows as dark as they were, she could see no forms moving behind them, and instead chose to drop into a low crouch and move the final few yards in a fast shuffle. When she finally ducked beneath a set of duel windows, she crouched only two feet from the peeling metal doorknob.

Again it jangled viciously, this time accompanied by a low moan that was not so much of rage as of suffering. Still, Sarah made her move quickly, jumping from her crouch to stand in front of the door and snap her foot out in a fast forward kick.

After so many years of rot and decay, the oak door didn't crumple inward as much as shatter into shrapnel that flew throughout the small station. A roar of pain quickly replaced the low moaning, and as her light cut a swath through the dust flying in the air, she saw the final curse of Alessa.

If there had been one group of people that had been the worst to Alessa it had been the nurses. Though they had tried to care for her as best they could, many had been servants of The Order and had kept her in terribly agony from her never-healing burns. If there had been any doubt as to the creation of Silent Hill before, all doubt was now dispelled from Sarah's mind. The proof lay on the ground in front of her.

Even the purity of the halogen light couldn't brighten the bloodstained, tattered, and torn uniform that had once been the nurses of Silent Hill. The dingy gray color looked natural in the dusty room, as did the spatters of blood on the uniform around her hips and legs.

As she raised her hands to ward the brilliant light away from her face, Sarah saw what had caused so much blood to cover the uniform. Each of the poor woman's fingers had been shredded down to the bone, many having the tips worn down past the first knuckle from her constant scratching to escape.

Lanky, stringy black hair covered the rest of her face. That, mixed with the terrible shadows in the room prevented Sarah from seeing anything else about her face. The nurses' arms were also affected by Silent Hill, being as white as a fish's underbelly with infected sores leaving bloody trails down the pale skin. Sarah nearly gagged as the nurse tried to rise, revealing broken splinter's of legs that had long ago turned to bone shards, preventing her from moving except with the most excruciating pain.

That didn't stop the monstrosity from bellowing in rage and jamming the shattered bone-stump into the rotten floor to gain a foothold. As she forced the shard of her thighbone through the wood, white splinters flaked off and blood began to pour from the already shredded skin of her leg.

Sarah backed away, finger tightening on the shotgun's trigger. She didn't want to use the weapon to kill the nurse, instead she wanted to draw the pistol she had and fire with that until the poor creature was out of her misery. Ignoring both, she turned and ran.

She ran directly into two more nurses, both carrying dragging steel pipes behind them. The first nurse had been merely a diversion, put in the most obvious place so that the unwary would be easy prey.

Sarah was trapped, and above her…Richard waited.


	12. The Nurses

_Well, here's the next chapter, I apologize for the wait, but several things conspired all at once for me to not get this done on time. This is actually the sixth draft of this particular chapter because I never could get the feel of what I wanted. Also, there is a part towards the end that is a flashback. _

_That part actually is going with my next plan for a story (causing this chapter to be further delayed as I figured out the details on a prequel). I really wanted to do another story, and in the middle of this one I got the idea for it. There will be elements of that story in this one, but really nothing to give away the suspense of it. It does bring some characters in from other stories, but again is mainly there for continuity. _

_Finally, the hospital I'm describing doesn't exactly correspond to the actual Brookhaven Hospital mainly because I didn't want to be looking at a map the entire time I was writing. It is of its own design, and therefore should not be criticized as not being "the Silent Hill Hospital."…I suppose you could, but I'll probably ignore it. _

_David Struve_

The shotgun roared and the hospital lobby was filled with the thunder of god and intense light as the two nurses stumbled backwards. The heavy buckshot had only winged them, but had done its job and cleared Sarah a path between them.

She took her opportunity, charging past them and into the more open reception area. As she ran, she dropped the shotgun and drew the pistol she kept in a shoulder holster under her right arm. A quick move flipped the light on underneath the weapon, and another turned the laser sight on.

Just as the two nurses staggered back to their feet she set her feet and fired two shots. The laser sight was perfectly sighted in and both took nearest one in the face, snapping her head back and showering the other in a crimson spray.

Even as she moved the sight to the second nurse, another shot rang out through the dark room. Sarah felt the air around her head move, and felt the marble pillar behind her splinter. Shrapnel filled the space around her, and she felt two shallow cuts open on her cheek. With a desperate move she crouched low and spun around the pillar, setting her back to it even as a second shot sent more stone flying.

A quick look around the pillar confirmed what she hadn't thought possible. The crippled nurse held a pistol in her hand, one that was now sighted in on Sarah's head. Another shot rang out at the same time Sarah jerked her head back, and again she felt the air move only inches from her face.

Readying her weapon, she turned the other way and found herself face-to-face with the blood spattered nurse that held the steel pipe. Only the purest will not to scream kept Sarah from falling back in horror, which saved her life.

The nurse's face was now fully revealed underneath the lanky black hair; it seemed that several of the earlier transformations had caught the still human nurses and tortured them at Alessa's will. Long scars ran the length of her ruined face, some still oozing blood and pus. Yet the worst was how pieces of her face had been cut away and re-arranged. Her mouth now opened vertically along her cheek, replaced by one cataracted eye. The tip of her nose had been ripped off, leaving a bloody hole. The only place that was untouched was her right eye, which stared at Sarah in a look of pain and misery. Whatever dark magic had created the nurses had ensured they would be in the same eternal pain as their now dead master.

Instinct made her bring her hands up and grab the pipe only a split-second before the nurse brought it down. Pushing backwards, Sarah managed to bring the already unshaken creature off-balance. Without hesitating she dropped to one knee and kicked out, wincing at the sound of the nurse's breaking knee.

She slipped back behind the pillar just a fourth shot ripped through the air where she'd stood.

Sarah had the advantage now, two nurses down and only one left that was evidently a terrible shot. Sarah risked another glance around the pillar and then immediately jerked her head back, counting as she did so. After she hit five, another shot illuminated the area.

Taking one of her trademark risks, Sarah jumped up from the pillar and sprinted towards the resting area where the crippled nurse still "stood." As she ran, she counted under her breath and a second before she said 'five' Sarah slid behind an overturned table. True to her count, the instant her body was hidden the nurse fired.

Not wanting to use more ammunition than necessary, Sarah made a quick glance around herself and saw one of the steel pipes a dead nurse had carried. It fit perfectly in her right hand.

Rolling out from behind the table, she ran straight for the nurse. As she did, she flipped her grip on the pistol so she held it by the barrel. At the count of 'four' she was within range of the nurse and acted. A fast spin sent the pipe out to strike the nurse's hands, snapping her wrists and sending the pistol flying away. Even before the tortured creature could scream, Sarah finished the spin. The butt of the pistol caught the nurse where her neck connected to her shoulders and snapped her spine.

With a sickening thud the nurse's body hit the ground, followed shortly by a loud crack as the bone in her leg gave out. Sarah couldn't help but wince at the sounds, but even more so at the low moaning from the nurse whose knee she'd broken.

One swing of the steel pipe ended both the moans and the nurse's misery.

Breathing shallowly to avoid vomiting, Sarah retraced her steps and picked up the shotgun. Only six shots remained in the weapon, but it had been worth using it to avoid being bludgeoned to death. Without a further need for it, she dropped the steel pipe.

After retrieving the shotgun, Sarah walked back to where the crippled nurse had been in the doorway to the lobby. The pistol lay by her side, resting in a pool of black blood. Swallowing her nausea, she holstered her own weapon and picked up the fallen pistol. A piece of the nurse's clothing helped to clean the weapon, and after slinging the shotgun onto her back, she drew the other pistol.

Now with one in each hand, she continued walking into the station and looked through the bloodstained papers. Most were illegible; covered in blood and yellowed with age.

One sheet caught her attention, being newer than the rest. Besides the date of the paper being the newest, it was also white among the other pages. The sheet was clasped in a clipboard and hanging on a stand marked "In-patients." The name on the sheet said William Bernshaw.

She could hardly breathe, wondering just exactly what had happened for William to appear in Silent Hill. A quick look told her he was being kept on the third floor of the hospital, suffering from extreme exhaustion, blood loss, and severe internal damage. Also linked to the clipboard was a stopwatch, running backwards and moving just past forty-five minutes.

No time was wasted as Sarah sprinted for the elevator, ignoring the tell-tale scraping of steel pipes on the ground as she ran. Her pathway carried her past a four-way intersection, and as she passed it two nurses appeared from the gloom. Both carried rusted pipes, and both fell back as Sarah opened fire with the duel pistols.

One fell immediately, bullets snapping her head back in a crimson spray. The other took several more steps before collapsing still trying futilely to breathe through her bullet ridden chest.

Her sprint took Sarah to the "H" elevator. After punching the button several times, she forced herself to calm down. It could just all be a lie that Richard was in the hospital. It could just be another trap of the city to get her to reveal herself. Yet somehow she couldn't bring herself to believe that. Somehow she knew that Richard had followed her to Silent Hill and was waiting upstairs.

The stopwatch in her hand passed forty minutes, and Sarah punched the up button again…as if it helped. Above her, the elevator passed the third floor and continued descending to the main lobby.

She heaved a sigh of relief when the lift gave a pleasant 'ding' and the doors opened. Until she saw a figure thought long dead standing in the doorway with a grin on his face.

Without giving the figure a chance to make any action, Sarah's hand shot up and fired one shot directly into his head. She saw a crimson spray fly out the back, shards of bone embedding in the torn elevator lining, and him crumple to the ground in a heap.

The doors slid closed on the elevator, having passed the standard time. Though she didn't want to get inside with a corpse, Sarah pressed the up button again. The stairs weren't a place she wanted to be with the nurses around.

Again the doors opened, and before she could react a hand flew out and knocked her onto her back. The force of the blow causing her pistol to fly out of her hand, leaving her with just the one she'd picked up from the fallen nurse.

"He told me you were in Silent Hill Sarah." The figure said casually. "But he didn't know where…but I knew. I knew exactly where you would be at. That's why I came here, to have a little reenactment."

Memories flooded back through Sarah's mind. Back to the sewers of Silent Hill, where she and several others had tried to escape so much earlier…during the original turning.

"Alex, we've got a problem over here!" Sarah shouted desperately from the concrete side of the sewer. "Something's moving up the main tunnel faster than we can get the people out! In another minute or so we'll lose them all!"

Splashing over to where Sarah stood, Alex looked down the tunnel at the creature that was charging towards them. He'd never thought they might be killed by something that looked like a large cube of acidic Jello…

"You're in charge of getting everyone out now Sarah." He said sadly. "I'll slow it down." Then he took out a single stick of dynamite, snapping the fuse until it was only a few seconds long.

She shook her head bitterly. "There's nothing you can do against it! If you even try go back down the tunnel it'll be suicide!"

"Let him die!" Paul shouted from across the room where daylight shone through the end of the passageway. "He's the one that got us trapped down here, I say let the bastard die!"

Alex stopped what he was doing long enough to laugh. "If I die Paul, you die too." He looked one last time at Sarah. "When this goes off, take care of him for me." Then he was running down the tunnel, pulling the silver Zippo from his pocket and lighting the fuse just as the creature engulfed him.

Sarah did even wait for the fuse to go off. She just turned and fired a single shot in Paul's direction.

"You're dead Paul." Sarah stammered from the ground. "I shot you in the head!"

Paul laughed bitterly, sending cold prickles racing down Sarah's back and across her neck. "Twice actually…but the problem with shooting me in the head Sarah is that you can't kill one of the dark men with a simple bullet to the skull. That might bring down one of the lesser creatures of the city, but I'm different than them."

Sarah raised the pistol again, firing another shot that echoed through the room. This one took Paul in the throat and he stumbled backwards, crashing hard into the elevator door.

"You bitch!" Paul gurgled through both the hole and the blood in his throat. "Now I can see how you survived the Dark Wing assassins." With a cautious hand he reached up to his shattered throat and covered it with his hands. After a few seconds he lowered them to reveal perfect pink skin.

The pistol roared again, firing until it finally clicked dry.

This time Paul barely flinched as the bullets smashed into his chest and stomach. Sarah merely saw him extend his arms into the shadows and draw them into himself. The room darkened dramatically as he gathered them into a ball that completely encircled him.

"My turn." He hissed smugly from inside the ball before it exploded around him, sending shards of black flying in every direction. Where he had stood, now was a creature that Sarah had only read of in The Order's texts.

He truly was a dark man, a creature that fed off the very energy of Silent Hill to move anywhere that a shadow covered. His power came from the darkness, and they possessed the ability to open a person's mind as easily as one might open a tin can. Inside they could sense your deepest fears and secrets, not hesitating to use them in any way possible against you.

"It seems that Master Walter has given me a very great gift indeed." The creature that had once been Paul said. "He gave me what I've desired for years now."


	13. Richard

_First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for waiting so long for updates. I know I probably lost a few of my fan base, but things immediately got hectic during the summer, and I found that the best time to write was during college where there weren't outstanding circumstances. _

_Expect the final chapters (20 will be the finale) to be finished before October 1. That's sort of my apology for taking so long on this one ;)_

_So, if you're still reading this, thank you and enjoy!_

"Desired but could never have." Sarah said bitterly from where she lay on the blood-soaked floor. "One of many things that you were disappointed in life with."

Paul merely laughed at the petty attempt to confuse him and possibly allow her to escape. Yet he did move a little, giving her a direct view to the elevator, and taunting her with how close her goal was.

His ploy almost worked. For just a moment Sarah thought about springing up from the floor and trying to power her way through. Then she realized that doing so would be playing directly into Paul's hands.

Instead she pushed off from her hands and rolled herself behind more of the rubble that lined the walls of the hospital. The move was so much different than what Paul had expected that she was able to regain her footing before he could react.

Sarah stood and ran, putting as much rubble and devastation between herself and Paul as possible. As her legs moved, seemingly of their own accord, she slapped another clip into her pistol and suddenly wheeled around to charge back towards the elevator.

She wheeled directly into the shadows that now made up Paul's domain. From every direction, invisible blows rained down on her body as he used the powers granted to him by Walter.

Still, by some small miracle, she managed to make it to the elevator and push the button. A cry of rage greeted her accomplishment, as Paul stepped out from the blackened surroundings. Shadows still covered his body in an inky blackness, but now his eyes burned with a supernatural black fire that belched a permeating smoke out into the air.

"You just don't understand do you Sarah?" He sneered. "You shouldn't even BE here. You shouldn't BE in Silent Hill. Let the bastard upstairs die...if you save him it will only complicate things."

"Go back to the hell you belong in." Sarah shouted as much in anger as fear just when the elevator doors behind her began to open. Faster than she could ever remember moving, she snatched the shotgun off her back and fired two shots directly into Paul's face. He screamed in pain and rage, and took a few steps back while clutching his ruined face.

This was just how long she needed to back into the elevator and hit the third floor button, a button that emitted a dim light in the dark and rust-covered lift. Only a few seconds passed before the shadows again flowed into Paul and he was healed, but when he looked up both Sarah and the elevator were gone.

Breathing a deep sigh of relief, Sarah slammed one of her three remaining clips into the pistol and waited for the iron doors to slowly creak open. There was no telling what would be waiting for her when she arrived at the third floor, and she could only prepare for Paul to be shortly behind her. Then there was the imminent danger of the nurses, and whatever could be happening to Richard.

Yet those weren't her greatest fears. If Paul had been trapped in Silent Hill upon his death there was no telling who else could still be waiting to fall under a possession. Walter had evidently taken great steps to stop any chance of destroying Silent Hill, and if he truly had risen to the rank of Master of The Order…it could mean a shift in the balance of power in the city.

Over a hundred years ago such a shift had occurred, when the original members following the teachings of Metatron had been killed in a coup to worship Sammael. Even now the Seal of Metatron was a powerful countering measure in Silent Hill, and would hold many of the lesser demons at bay.

A bell softly chimed, bringing Sarah out of her thoughts and alerting her to the fact that she'd arrived at the third floor. Somewhere amid the maze of rooms was Richard, and time was flowing faster through her fingers than she wished. Already the clock was down past twenty five minutes, and it would take just about that long to fully search the floor. Then, with a creak that covered the back of her neck in gooseflesh, the doors slid open to reveal pitch blackness.

Without wasting any time, she moved quietly from the elevator and padded down the darkened hallway on the balls of her feet. Her flashlight illuminated some of the hall, but left more than enough of it hidden from her view, easily able to hide creatures or other Dark Men.

Instead of following her instincts, all telling her to run away from the building and never return, she made her way to the first door and turned the knob. Despite the darkness and the rot dotting the hall, the door opened easily to reveal an empty bed covered in old bloodstains. Some kind of moss grew on the sheets, but Sarah chose to ignore whatever it could be.

The next few doors all revealed the same scene. Beyond those, several were either locked or barred by wreckage. Only two more opened in the entire left wing of the floor, leaving her with two more sections to explore and fifteen minutes to do it in.

It was as she walked to the center that she became aware of the presence the seemed to be watching every step she took. Not Paul or even one of the nurses, there was no distinct feeling of being threatened…just one of general unease that ran to her very core.

The first five doors in the center section opened, all revealing either the long dead bodies of tortured nurses or blood-soaked clothing piled in large heaps along the ground.

Sarah found just what it was that had been watching her when she re-entered the hall after a disappointing (and disturbing) search of one room. As she walked out of the room, a flicker of silver knocked the pistol out of her hand and a fierce kick to her leg sent her tumbling to the ground.

"You move much slower than anticipated Sari'torunia." Walter Sullivan said from above her, katana back in the sheath at his waist. As she starred in awe, a large black bird flew down and landed on his shoulder, recognizable only by the black fire burning from its eyes.

"You only have ten minutes in which to save Richard." He continued, mocking her from where he stood. "Maybe you weren't as well trained as I'd thought."

"I was good enough to kill everyone you sent after me." She growled from the ground. "Every single member of the Dark Wing you threw at me."

Walter laughed, bringing the bird's head around. "I sent only the weakest after you Sari'torunia, because even now you have your uses. Not the least of which would be saving your dear husband, wouldn't it?"

From where she lay, Sarah couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Why would you want Richard saved? He has the power to bring down Silent Hill." She stammered incredulously.

"Must you spend all your time asking questions from the floor?" Walter quipped with a raised eyebrow. "Or is it that you do your best thinking when you're lying on your back?" Ignoring the evil glare she gave him, he threw a piece of paper to her and turned around.

"You'll find his room number there. Tell him I admire his resolve. Few others would have passed as long as he did without calling out to me to save him." Then with a brilliant flash of white light, Walter disappeared from the hallway.

Knowing that her time was running short, Sarah snatched up her pistol and the scrap of paper. Then, without bothering to even look around her, she ran down the hallway in a dead sprint. Vaulting dead nurses and overturned wheelchairs, she reached the door that Walter had specified. Clawing at the doorknob, she found it locked.

From behind the door she heard a weak voice cry out, Richard's voice cry out. Tired of playing the game Walter's way, she kicked the door as hard as she could…and nearly broke her foot at how solid this single door still was. Limping slightly and cursing loudly, she raised her pistol and fired several shots into the handle and surrounding area. With a loud screech the door finally swung open and she entered to find the knives already stopped above Richard, one only an inch from his left eye.

"Sarah!" He gasped weakly from the bloodstained gurney he lay on. "I thought you were dead!"

Nothing else was said as she ran to him and slowly moved him off the bed and onto the ground. "Did you submit to Walter?" She asked as she moved him, hoping that she didn't already hear the answer from her encounter in the hallway.

"No." Richard said adamantly. "I refused to."

With a deliberate motion Sarah put the pistol to her husband's forehead. "Walter was the one who told me where you'd be, and then when I get here you've already been saved from whatever was going to happen to you. Now why the hell should I believe that you didn't turn to his side like you were before?"

Richard gave no answer, only held up his left arm for her to see. Displayed prominently on his ring finger were two sparkling gold bands. "I had another promise to keep." He said in a perfectly serious voice.

"Good enough for me." She said quickly before pulling him up to a sitting position. "Now, how do we get you healed? You're absolutely no good like you are now."

He coughed once, blood rolling out of the corner of his mouth. "We'd need enough of Walter's blood to make the Seal of Metatron, and then I'd need a half-hour to summon some of the lesser deities. One of them should heal me for some of the Master of The Order's blood."

Sarah gave him a withering look of disbelief even before she wiped the trickle from his mouth. "And where would we find Walter Sullivan's blood?"

She followed his gaze as it went to the bag of blood that he'd been getting a transfusion from. In a heavy charcoal marker the letters WS were visible. "He's been toying with us the entire time." Richard said quietly. "And to make matters worse we've played into his hands directly. Walter couldn't take the position he was in until we came back, and he can't take full control of his powers unless we're both dead."

"Then why would he keep you alive?"

"He's linked to me somehow. If I would have died before performing this ritual he'd have been weakened. Once I heal myself our link is broken. It will make Walter lose the demonic powers he had, but will allow him to summon two demons more powerful than anything else he's been able to at this point."

"I should remember this…" Sarah said much more calmly than she expected she would. "But nearly being killed a dozen times over has gotten in the way. You need to explain things a little better."

"Walter will be allowed to summon Asmodean, the lord of darkness, and Belial, the lord of lies. Asmodean will make Walter nearly invincible, and Belial was second in power only to Sammael."

A deep sigh escaped from Sarah. "So you'll die if we do nothing, but that means we won't be able to bring down Silent Hill…but if we save you then Walter becomes a literal demi-god. Where was all this in the marriage vows?"

"They really should be changed to 'and do you Sarah promise to save your husband from beds of knives and demonic entities if he should ever go to a possessed town and become involved in battling a cult.'"

"Stop being sarcastic." Sarah said angrily. "Now help me get that bag of blood and stop your whining."

As Sarah moved around the room, she never noticed the black bird perched outside the window, watching with burning opal eyes. Walter would be ready to summon Asmodean and Belial as soon as the link was severed.


	14. The Summoning

_Well, this is more of a filler chapter that will set up everything else for the rest of the storyline. Be ready for the last 5 to be pretty fast and furious, so take a deep breath, and again take the plunge into Silent Hill. _

_And for getting me back on track, this chapter dedicated to Tipps. _

_Aedian Grendle_

Walter Sullivan sat on the throne of The Master of The Order. He'd both seen and been involved in hundreds of rituals, but none matched the importance of what he now did. Stripped to the waist, he sat staring at the line of jars along the left wall.

Over two hundred varying containers lined a series of shelves along the wall, each seemingly randomly place. Some were crafted of the finest gold and silvers while others were of black iron and a few even were crafted of polished human bone. They held the various liquids and powders that would be used in every ritual possible in Silent Hill.

He stood and strode over to them, holding the Ronin Blade easily in his left hand. From the top of the throne, Paul watched him in the bird form that he could easily change to. It kept him easily concealed from any of the creatures in the city that were still not fully under Walter's control, and allowed him to spy on Richard and Sarah without being noticed.

Now though, with Walter up and moving, he flew down to the floor and changed into the only form he truly liked. That of his previous form as Paul before the city had claimed him. He'd blamed Sarah and Alex for years after he'd been kept in the city, and that had been the main reason he'd helped Walter. Sullivan was a master at playing people's emotions, and this had been no different.

"I've done what you wanted me to. Isn't it time to release me from your service?" He asked Walter once he'd fully transformed back.

The Master of The Order ignored him, lost in his thoughts of how to next fulfill his plans. Only a few people would have made it this far, but he wasn't happy with that. He wanted a way to fully restore Silent Hill to what it had been before the fools had ruined the city by trying to summon Sammael.

"Walter, I did everything you asked." Paul stated a little louder. "Now why haven't you let me get the peace you promised me?" When Walter gave no sign of having heard him again, Paul angrily walked over and reached to grab his shoulder. "Damnit Walter, let me go!"

A blur of motion sent him stumbling backwards, holding his cheek in pain. The Ronin blade now only inches from his face and dripping a thin line of blood from the tip.

"It's been a while since you've felt pain, hasn't it?" Walter asked coldly from his position only a few feet away. "Now that Richard has broken our bond, I've also severed ours. If I'm going to be mortal, then you will be also."

"Does that mean I'm free!" Paul asked incredulously.

Walter slid the blade down to Paul's shirt and wiped the blood onto it. "As free as you can ever be from Silent Hill." The blade went back into the sheath in his left hand. "Any creature can now kill you, so if you try to leave you'll die. But yes, you're 'free'."

He watched as the hope that had so suddenly sprung to Paul's eyes disappeared. "So you're saying that no matter what I still need you to protect me?"

"I won't protect you." Walter said laughing. "At least not unless you agree to keep serving my cause. Once I've restored Silent Hill, you'll be judged by me. If you're found lacking then you die. If you've served well...I'll let you go."

Knowing that he'd served Walter's ends as easily as Sarah and Richard had, Paul hung his head and walked to the jars containing the supplies. "What should I get for you?" He asked quietly.

"I'll need sulphur, powdered bone, gold dust, and several other things that you'll be getting me as the ritual continues." Walter said, walking to the throne again. "Also, you will be forbidden to hold any of the ceremonial daggers. Forgive my rudeness, but I don't trust you."

Then he motioned for Paul to spread the powders in a circle before moving down into the center of the floor and dictating how the designs should go. After it was finished, he ordered Paul away and drew his sword. "It's time for me to take back my city." He said solemnly before slashing his own hand and adding the blood of The Master of The Order to the ritual.

Instantly the mixture began to smoke and sputter. The demons had heard, and were responding. Above it all, Walter began to smile. It was almost time.

After completing the ritual to heal Richard, both he and Sarah crept their way back down to the hospital lobby. He was still weak, and it would take up to an hour for him to heal fully, but he'd stopped bleeding and the color was coming back to his skin.

Even with his gradual healing Sarah didn't trust him to be in the thick of any combat, and so she gave him the pistol while she took the shotgun. Given half a chance she would have kept both, but in Silent Hill Richard needed some form of defense against the creatures they would most likely fight on the streets.

When the two finally left the broken and decrepit Brookhaven behind, Sarah immediately took the lead and the two moved as fast as possible to the sidewalks, ignoring the deep cracks in the street and the constant screams of the Chupa creatures.

Their path would lead them past where an old gunshop had once been and if their luck held, which she desperately hoped it did, they would be able to find some badly needed ammunition. Richard had only a few other clips to reload his pistol, and her shotgun was nearly out.

Around them, fog suddenly began to swirl past their legs, and the cries of the Chupas doubled...then tripled. Only now the cries weren't of hunger or even of rage. These were cries of pain, of an agony beyond anything that could be imagined. And they were growing louder.

"Can you run yet?" Sarah yelled back at Richard, trying to be heard over the tumult of the city. As if to add insult to her question the siren began to blow again, signifying that yet another change was happening in Silent Hill, and that it was falling deeper under its demonic possession.

"I don't think I have a choice!" He shouted up to Sarah before he saw shapes beginning to take form in the mists around them, now noticeably thicker than before. "You go first, I'll follow!"

She needed no more prompting, breaking into a sprint that left Richard jogging after her. Every motion made him wince, the constant run pulling at his recently closed side wound. Yet for every few feet he moved, Sarah lengthened the gap between them, and the creatures behind him closed it.

Wheeling around, he fired two shots into the fog, both missing their targets. At the moment he'd tried to fire, the ground itself had begun to buck and shatter. Asphalt and concrete screeched and gave away to fall into swirling pits of fire blocked only by rusted metal grates.

While most of the city had turned to rot and decay during the last change, Walter's growing power now lent it the power to transform completely. Buildings were gutted and left as smoldering ruins that reached towards the blackened sky as if in a plea to stop their own destruction. The few chunks of road left formed only a series of small paths that led to a building on their left, and another far in the distance ahead of them.

Richard looked around himself again seeing a stunned and frightened Sarah a hundred feet in front of him, and creatures directly from one of the nine hells behind him.

It was impossible to tell how tall the creatures were, due to how badly shrunken and misshapen they were, yet it could still be seen how they had once been the Chupa creatures that had roamed the city.

The lanky white hair still hung down over their faces, but now stopped when it came to their shoulders. Their lower jaws were missing, having been ripped from their faces and leaving bloody trails down their scaly chests. As if to make up for the lack of a lower jaw, their upper now protruded over a foot from their mouths, torn and twisted from the sheer speed of the mutation and growth. Row after row of razor-sharp teeth lined their upper jaws, all yellowed with decay and some still dripping the creature's blood.

The transformation would have been horribly painful, proven by the crazed look in their glowing red eyes. Bloody scales protruded from their now fully grown arms, and provided protection down to their now mutilated hands. Bones and hooks protruded from below its elbows, and for a moment Richard was unsure of what they were for. As weapons they would be impractical, causing wounds to even the creatures that used them.

His question was answered then they dove underneath the grates and used the bones protruding from their bodies to swing towards him at an amazing speed. The scales on their bodies protected them from the flames that licked at their feet and legs, instead spurring them on faster.

Richard would have stood where he was watching them, but suddenly he was being pulled towards the building on their left. Sarah had run up while he was watching and now they ran towards the building.

Bursts of fire and blasts of steaming air assaulted the two of them as they ran. Nearly half-way to the building, the creatures skittered underneath them and continued their jittery crawl to whatever goal they were after.

A goal that became evident as they swung themselves up onto the concrete slabs that Sarah and Richard ran on. The creatures landed with a thud and let out a warbling screech that filled the air around them, causing Richard to open fire on them. The bullets slapped against the scales on their arms, sending small spurts of crimson into the air, but failing to do any real damage to them.

Four of the creatures immediately broke for the Sarah and Richard, but were met by the incredible blast of the shotgun. Incredibly the pellets did little but spur the creatures on, bringing moans of pleasure from their mouths, and letting Richard know exactly what they were.

'Sarah!" He yelled to her. "They're creatures brought by Asmodean! Run through them before they can hit you!"

Only a slight nod met his words, but suddenly she was charging forward into the group and swinging the shotgun back and forth, knocking the creatures into the flames below. Many weren't killed by her attack, they simply hooked onto the gratings, but within seconds a path was open for Richard to follow her through the path.

"A Remington pump-action, pistol grip shotgun with all the bells and whistles…and I'd give the damn thing up for a solid steel pipe right now." She muttered under her breath, angry with herself for having left the weapon behind in the hospital. Richard, wisely, said nothing.

The creatures swung after them, some being engulfed by the blasts of fire yet still moving when the heat dissipated. Every few dozen feet, Richard would turn and fire two shots, slowing the lead creatures and sometimes hitting them with minor wounds. Each new blood-letting brought accompanying shrieks of joy that worried him more than he'd thought possible.

They ran, the creatures followed, and the fires continued to burn.


	15. Asmodean

Walter was exhausted from the ritual, but was pleased to see the two figures standing in front of him. Paul had long ago fled to the corner of a room in panic, and Walter was more than willing to allow him his fear.

To his left stood Asmodean, the demon that had supposedly had his hand in the building of Solomon's temple. While the demon took the guise of a young man in his prime of life, the Lord of Lust was in essence millennia old. Thousands had fallen to his charms, and it was rumored that he'd even brought down the great King David of biblical times.

The other was a prankster, well known as a lesser demon that had risen exponentially through the ranks to reach the pinnacle of what his blood would allow. Belial was, simply put, an outsider that would do anything for a price. If he found the mission to his liking, he'd do it even without being summoned. He, for the demon had also assumed a male form, was one of the most unpredictable entities that Walter had ever dealt with. One could never be sure whose hands the demon would play into.

Which was why Walter had made sure to put extra protection from the creatures on himself. Asmodean would try to seduce him, since it was possible for the ancient demon to change sexes as easily as some would change clothes.

Yet Belial was able to change into any form he knew of. Several times Walter had been startled to see himself staring at his own face across the room. Each time Belial had quickly changed to a different person's body, sometimes a demon writhing on the floor with tentacles and claws, and other times a beautiful succubus capable of taking one's breath away. Once even Asmodean's brows had raised at the form Belial had taken, that particular succubus well known to him, and even created by his own hand.

"The city has been changed by your presence, can you not feel it?" Walter asked ecstatically. "Soon I'll have the power to reform Silent Hill, and once I do this city shall again know true power."

Belial stepped forward, looking exactly like Alessa. "Even now the chase has begun against those two that would seek to destroy what we've wrought. It will just be a matter of minutes until they're dead."

"NO!" Walter said fiercely from where he stood. "They cannot be killed yet. Order your creatures to let them escape. There's still something that I need from them."

The twin looks of surprise on the demon's faces matched perfectly..as it should since Belial was in the form of Asmodean. "And what would The Master of The Order require from the two miscreants?" Asmodean, the true Asmodean, asked in a tone that left no doubt he disapproved of how Walter was handling the situation.

"Only one deity can stop me at this moment." Walter said, watching as anger entered both the demon lords' eyes. They knew of whom he spoke, and one also now knew what his plan was.

"And you think that Richard will bring you the untouchable relic?" Belial scoffed while eyeing the Ronin Blade that Walter carried in his left hand. During his previous incarnation he'd been killed by that very weapon and had no intention of repeating the experience. "He's already turned down your offers of alliance. He'll not bring you the icon without explicit reason."

Asmodean walked to Walter and knelt, signifying that, while summoned against his will, he would still follow his newest master. "Richard will know of it and will bring it, of that there is no doubt. Yet what are we to do?"

Walter acknowledged the pledge of loyalty and then walked to the throne, using all of his discipline to keep from falling due to exhaustion. Once there, he sat and looked back out over the two demon lords. From behind them, hundreds of eyes stared out at them, the eyes of demons loyal to both Walter and Asmodean. Belial had brought nothing of the host at his disposal. A curious move to all that though of it, and one that actually worried Walter.

Putting those thoughts out of his mind, Walter turned his attention back to the situation at hand. "On the outskirts of the city you've brought your tower, correct?" He asked Asmodean.

"One of writhing flesh and living bone." The demon agreed. "You seek to split them apart again, turn them against each other?"

Walter nodded. As if fate itself had woven their paths together, Asmodean would again face Sarah in life. The thought thrilled him, and gave him an added measure of comfort. He was still in favor with the ideals of Sammael. "Belial will use his powers of illusion to drive a wedge between the two, and then to lead Richard to the icon. Only then are you allowed to bring them back together."

"And if I refuse?" Belial asked suddenly from where he still stood. "What will happen to your precious plan then?"

"An interesting option, but one I doubt you'd care to experience." Walter said honestly. "The Ronin Blade has tasted your flesh once, and will not hesitate to do so again." When Belial nodded, Walter told him what to do.

Richard and Sarah leaned against the wall in the gunshop, both breathing heavily from their escape from the creatures. For a short while it had seemed as if their run would end in a hopeless death for either of them, but then Richard had managed to fire a single shot that had struck one in the eye, killing it and sending the others into a panic.

"What are those things?" Sarah asked between gulps of air. "It can't be the same creatures we fought earlier."

Through the boarded up window, Richard looked resignedly at the dozens of creatures now roaming the streets. Once he'd had the task of summoning a single one, and it had nearly destroyed the Dark Wing by its strength. It was a creature that fed on the pain and suffering of those around it, one that derived physical pleasure from pain. It was the personal servant of Asmodean, created for the purpose of pleasure from pain. It was the Unnamed.

Few people knew how to kill them, and Richard had only discovered how to by the fluke shot in the street. Only a shot that would provide instant death killed the Unnamed, and anything else merely made them stronger and more excited for pain.

"They're called the Unnamed." He said while still looking out the window. "Asmodean created them out of a twisted ideal of sadism. There isn't much you can do to kill them."

Sarah grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. "You know about them, so you know how to get rid of them, right?" She asked uncertainly.

A few seconds went by, Richard searching his memories for anything that might possibly protect them…and then he knew.

"The necklace of Metatron." He said reverently. "It causes any creature in the city to act as if you don't exist. The necklace will protect you from anything that wishes to do you harm."

"Then we need to go get it." Sarah said resignedly. "Of course it won't just be simply going to a well lit part of town and having an old mystic handing to you."

A curious look from Richard caused her to chuckle. "It's easier than saying we'll need to sneak our way past dozens of flesh-eating creatures, sneak into wherever we need to go, and then enter into a life-or-death struggle with whatever demon controls the area."

"Asmodean." Richard said simply. "It will be Asmodean. Belial is far too unpredictable to be trusted with such an icon."

Sarah nodded before turning and rummaging through several of the shelves. "We'll need ammo." Was all the said, and true to her word she pulled two boxes of shotgun shells out from the rubble. "Are you just going to stand there, or are you planning on helping me keep us both alive?" She asked sarcastically.

Richard felt a small smile creep across his face. "I thought I'd been doing a good job until now."

"Sure you have." She said shortly. "You managed to get caught by Walter, nearly killed by something in the school, and are only standing here because I managed to drag your sorry hide out of the danger. You've done a fine job."

"Just for that I'll look for the bullets on my own, thank you." Richard quipped before grunting as a box of 9mm hit him in the chest. It was closely followed by two more.

"I won't use this many bullets in just my pistol."

It wasn't a question, but any doubts he may have had were answered when Sarah stood and began slamming things down on a broken counter. "It's time we took the initiative." She said, strapping a side holster on in order to fire the shotgun from the hip.

Another pistol and two hip holsters sat on the counter, along with several empty clips. If they would have been buying the equipment their bill would easily have run over a thousand dollars, and at some point that might have worried Richard. Now, however, he simply reached for them and strapped them across his waist.

Ten minutes later, they crept out of the gunshop, each holding their weapons and willing to use them. They saw few of the Unnamed, but those they did sent the two scrambling for whatever cover they could find in the ruined city. The last thing they wanted was another chase that this time they might not survive.

"Do you even know where we're going?" Sarah asked softly as they emerged from one set of cover. The heat of the fires burning beneath the city were beginning to get to both of them, and each had begun wishing for something to drink that didn't involve blood or other bodily juices.

"There's only one place Asmodean would be." Richard said just as softly, holding both pistols tightly to his chest. A flash of red lightning suddenly illuminated the area, showering them both with crimson light from above and below. In the distance a tower could be seen that shook them to the core. "His own personal palace." He finished.

Jutting out of the land over two hundred feet in the air, Asmodean's tower was truly a sight to behold. The walls were made of pearly bone, sparkling in the light of the several torches that branched only slightly from the walls. The entire tower pulsed, causing it to look as if it were made of flesh and blood and sometimes the walls were even made of a material very much like skin.

Richard and Sarah stood on the bottom floor, staring upwards at the twin staircases. On opposite sides of the room two spiral staircases twirled their way upwards, going hundreds to what the two guessed was the top of the structure.

Above them, from the low hanging clouds, the red lightning again flashed and a light drizzle began to fall. The ground sizzled and popped wherever the drops fell, most landing in the ever burning flames underneath them. In just a few minutes the drizzle turned to a downpour, soaking both Richard and Sarah.

"Well, this is pleasant." Sarah said sarcastically. "How do we want to do this? Both on one staircase or one on each?"

Richard looked around, noticing that there were several gates that hadn't been opened yet. "I think it would be safer to each take one. One of us HAS to get to Asmodean. If one of the staircases is a trap...well then the other will kill the demon."

Neither wanted to admit that it was a very distinct possibility, but Richard finally had. It helped to have finally said what they had both been thinking and some of the tension seemed to have drained out of the air around them.

"I'll go left, you go right." He said finally, watching as she nodded. Then there was no more talking, just the slapping of footsteps on wet ground.

Richard reached his staircase first, noticing that the bannister was made of a polished skull with vertebrae lining it all along the stairway. Each step was carefully carved rib bones that reflected the light back in glittering colors that sent cascades of colors all along the next few steps.

He'd climbed to a quarter of the way up the stairs when he heard a loud click from the opposite side of the room. He turned to see Sarah looking at the step she stood on, and instantly Richard could see why. One of the ribs was now depressed deeply into the staircase, and several of the gates on the bottom floor were slowly swinging open to reveal dozens of the Unnamed.

"Sarah run!" Richard shouted as several of the Unnamed jumped from the ground up to the rip bone, catching it in its claws and beginning to swing up towards Richard. Nearly a dozen began to climb after Sarah. Without stopping to think about what would happen to himself, Richard began running up the stairs, firing as he did so. Within seconds, two of the creatures had fallen from the staircase, and Sarah, guided by Richard's shots, had begun firing several shells into the ribs behind her.

Richard had very nearly cleared five more of them from under Sarah's staircase when two jumped over his railing, one in front and one behind him, and came at him with their hands extended. Grinning slightly to himself, Richard took aim at the eye of the one in front of him and squeezed the trigger.

The pistol clicked dry.

With a barely muffled curse, he holstered that pistol and drew the second one. Without the time to re-aim at its face, Richard merely jammed the weapon into the scales on its chest and pulled the trigger repeatedly. Bullets ripped through the scales and the fleshy organs in the Unnamed, and as he heard the shotgun roar across the room, his hearing was nearly destroyed by the screech of unholy pain that erupted from the Unnamed's mouth. For a creature the was given pleasure from pain, Richard had hit something vital to cause it to screech in that way.

While that one slumped to the ground, he wheeled around to find the other in midswing. He had just enough time to slightly raise an arm before the Unnamed hit him. The swing caught him just under his raised arm, ripping the bony claws along his jacket. If he hadn't been fully healed, the blow would have hit in exactly the same spot as Pyramid Head's spear. Yet the wound had healed, and now all the claws did was rip shallow furrows along his skin. His pistol, meanwhile, tore holes in the Unnamed's eyes.

With those two dead, Richard risked a quick glance over and saw Sarah easily holding the Unnamed off. The shotgun was a vicious weapon in close, and after a handful of the creatures had been killed, few others had wanted to risk the buckshot.

Knowing that she would be safe, Richard began sprinting up the stairs, trying hard not to slip in the still pouring rain. The bones were horribly slick, but somehow he managed to make it all the way to the top of the tower without falling. Oddly, the Unnamed ceased their chase after following him nearly to the top.

He emerged onto the top of the tower, and crept forward. The torches and flames from underneath the city that had lit the tower now did little to provide any source of light, and Richard was forced to turn on the penlight underneath his pistol. When he thought about it, he withdrew the other pistol and reloaded both.

"Sarah?" He called through the darkness, walking to where she would have emerged from the staircase. "Where are you?"

A flurry of motion behind him drew his gaze around, followed closely by both pistols. When the light hit the figure standing, Richard knew he was in terrible trouble.

Standing a few inches below Richard's frame, the man was dressed regally. Silk lined his clothing, and the rain that had so throughly soaked Richard didn't seem to bother him at all, merely sliding off onto the ground.

Yet it was what he held in his hand that frightened Richard so much. It was a sword of unsurpassed quality that had the word OBEDIENCE scripted down the side in golden script. It was one of the legendary five Swords of Obedience, weapons forged for the specific purpose of trapping souls in a hellish purgatory for eternity. Richard could only guess where Walter had found one of them, and if he'd known the truth of how Henry had at some point possessed all five, he would have nearly collapsed from shock.

"I am Asmodean." The man said in a smooth voice. "Lord of Lust and the owner of this tower. Who are you and what business do you claim to have?"

"My name is Richard, and I'm here for the necklace of Metatron." He replied carefully, hoping to bluff his way into getting what he wanted. It was only when he heard the shotgun fire twice more from underneath his feet that he knew time was running out.

"The necklace you seek isn't here. Walter has given it to Belial for whatever reason he has chosen. I was merely bait to lure you to your deaths." The ancient demon held the longsword in his hand up above his head, and a dull glow began to emanate from the surrounding walls. Once it was light enough for Richard to see, he noticed that the sword was covered in some kind of a black ichor along the top half of the blade.

"This was the blade that held Cynthia Velasquez in eternal torment. She was Walter's sixteenth victim in the Holy Mother Ritual." Asmodean saw Richard's eyes widen and laughed, a sound so smooth that it was much like two sheets of fine satin rubbing together. "Do not worry yourself, the ritual failed. However, Cynthia shall no longer torment him, instead your soul shall be the one pinned to the ground in eternal distress."

"I don't think so." Came the sudden reply from the right of Asmodean as a torn and bloodied Sarah fired at him. As Richard dove out of the way, the buckshot tore into the Lord of Lust and knocked him to the floor.

Richard was moving then, climbing back to his feet and sprinting to where the demon lay. He arrived to find soaked crimson clothing, the Sword of Obedience, and little else. Then he was on his back, ears ringing and brilliant lights playing through his head.

He vaguely saw Asmodean holding Sarah by the neck with one hand, digging his fingers in so hard that blood was slowly trickling down her throat onto her shoulders and chest. His other hand was placed on her chest, trying to smash his fingers in and rip her heart out.

That didn't happen, instead she kicked out hard pushing Asmodean off balance and directly into Richard's line of fire. Five bullets ripped into the demon's flesh, made mortal by Walter's insecurities and never told to Asmodean.

"I bleed." He said simply before slumping to his knees on the floor. Richard raised his pistol and fired one last shot, this time sending him back to the banished hells he'd been summoned from. Then, with shaking hands he pulled himself upright and ran to Sarah.


	16. Death and Betrayal

1 The pains of the night rushed through Richard's body as he ran to where Sarah lay on the slick, bloody ground. Five gashes marred her throat, all leaking blood onto the already wet flesh that made Asmodean's Tower.

The Sword of Obedience lay underneath her, Sarah having fallen on it when she'd kicked off from Asmodean. Specially forged steel glittered coldly in the light of Richard's flashlight, and the word OBEDIENCE sparkled in the golden dust that had filled it to form those words.

Desperate, he rolled her over onto her back and saw the blood leaking down her chest from five holes in the cloth of her shirt. The wounds were deep, ragged and ugly looking.

He had no idea what to do, and barely was able to keep from screaming in anger at the frustration he felt. She was badly hurt, of that there was no doubt. If he'd given Asmodean a few more seconds, there was a very good chance that Sarah would be dead. It was a truth he didn't want to believe.

Standing, Richard ran to where Asmodean lay and ripped several lengths of cloth from his clothing. Then he ran back to Sarah and began to dab at her wounds. Around her neck, he loosely tied one of the strips, blocking the blood from seeping down her neck.

The other he held as a pressure bandage on her chest, the entire time hoping that Metatron would deem it fit to give them something to save her life. No miracle came, but from down below Richard could hear the smooth stride of booted feet slowly ascending the ladder of bone.

Turning as much as he could to face the ladder while still keeping pressure on the bandage, he had no choice but to remove his left hand from the bandage and pick up the pistol. Blood began to seep around the bandages, staining his hand more crimson than it already was.

The cold steel of the pistol shook against his hand as the cool water of the night cascaded down him in streams. It hadn't stopped raining since he'd killed Asmodean, and now the puddles were beginning to flow off the side of the tower, falling hundreds of feet down to the burning earth where it burst into steam.

As the footsteps grew louder, Richard put down the pistol and again put both hands on Sarah's wound. Whoever it was would either kill him or not. He wasn't about to trade his own safety for Sarah's life.

The sound of booted feet soon gave way to the flapping of wings as a dark bird flew through one of the holes in the floor that led to lower regions of the tower. Knowing that only one person would be accompanied by such an animal, Richard resigned himself to whatever death he'd receive. Live or die, he would not abandon Sarah.

It was with no surprise that he watched a platinum-haired figure suddenly appear from the gloom, black bird standing nervously on his shoulder. In one hand he still held the Ronin Blade, and in the other was a strangely shaped symbol with a leather cord that looped over his hand.

"Sarah's dying." Walter said quietly in the night, barely able to be heard over the patter of rain. "She's dying and there's nothing you can do to stop it Richard."

"And you've come to mock me?" Richard asked in as much shock as he could muster. "Don't you think I've suffered enough?"

For a moment Walter looked at him as if Richard had suddenly changed. Then he held his right hand out and let the symbol drop until the leather grew taut. "Silent Hill is all about suffering Richard. Long ago you proved to me that you were strong...strong enough to survive the orphanage and everything involved in it." He fell silent for a few seconds before looking at the pool of crimson surrounding Sarah. "You even saved my life once...and now I return the favor."

With a flick of his wrist, the symbol flew through the air and landed next to Sarah's prone body. At the motion the bird erupted into the air, black feathers floating gently to the ground. A single glance told Richard that Walter had just given him the relic they'd come to Asmodean's tower for.

"Put it on." Walter said just as softly as he'd spoken before. "A life for a life is a fair trade." When Richard made no move to pick up the icon, Walter put one hand on the pommel of the Ronin Blade. "Put it on...now."

"I CAN'T!" Richard yelled at him, still not able to take his hands away from Sarah's wound. "If you can't tell, my wife is bleeding to death! I move my hands and she dies."

Walter laughed, first a chuckle that soon grew to a full hearty laugh. "Is that all that's preventing you from putting on the medallion? If that's all..."

Then, with a single motion, he drew the blade and slammed it deeply into Sarah's chest. A piercing scream came from Sarah's lips as the katana pierced skin and bone until it was buried to the hilt in her chest, only inches away from Richard's hands.

In shock, Richard stumbled backwards, the rain cleaning the blood off his hands now that it could hit them. In desperation he picked up the closest weapon to him and found to his satisfaction that the Sword of Obedience was resting perfectly in his hand.

"You BASTARD!" Richard screamed before charging the seemingly unarmed Walter. It was only when his sword struck another that he realized Walter had more of an advantage then he'd imagined.

The counterpart to the Ronin Blade was in Walter's hand, only a simple wakizashi, but one that had served its purpose many times. For in his hand was the very blade that had claimed Sammael's life in the bitter struggle that Heather had gone through.

The weapon had changed after the destruction of Sammael, though, and now was lit with a dark inner glow. The single opal in the pommel of the weapon burned fiercely with a black fire that now raced up the blade at Walter's call.

A sudden wave of heat erupted into Richard's face as the fire began to sweep down the Sword of Obedience. Two more fast strikes with the longsword quickly put any hope of defeating Walter out of his mind. The heat from the wakizashi was forcing him further and further back, ever closer to the edge of the tower.

"Give me the Sword of Obedience." Walter stated, holding the shorter katana in one hand. "If you give me that blade then there is no reason for you to die here today. All you'll have to do is leave Silent Hill and never come back."

Richard simply glared at him, unsure as to what to do. "What would you do if you had the sword?" He asked finally. "Why does Walter Sullivan need a blade that he obviously gave to Asmodean?"

Walter stared at him in awe at the blunt question. "Gave him the Sword of Obedience!" He asked incredulously. "It was stolen from me by him and four other demons! Now I have the chance to use its power once again!"

"For what end!" Came the furious reply.

With perfect calm, Walter looked Richard in the eye and nodded. "To purge Silent Hill of all its demons, to once and or all ensure that it would never be possessed again."

The answer rocked Richard back on his heels, shocking him as no other answer could. "But you're the Master of the Order!" He stated as much as asked. "You swore an oath to save Silent Hill!"

"Did I?" A smug voice asked quietly in the rain and gloom.

Memories of rituals and summonings filled Richard's head as he struggled to remember what was necessary to become Master. "Yes." He said after only a brief hesitation. "You have to swear to protect and save Silent Hill."

The wakizashi suddenly disappeared back into Walter's coat as he turned his back and walked away from the edge of the tower, giving Richard room to edge his way back towards the middle of the room.

"If you haven't noticed, the magic that held Silent Hill together is falling apart. The city is at war with itself, and every demon vies for power now that Sammael is dead." He stopped only to hold out his arm and will the black bird back down to his arm. "Heather accomplished much more than she ever could have dreamed of. Sammael was the final guiding force holding Silent Hill together…and now he's gone. With Claudia dying shortly before that, the city had lost its "Master" and God at the same time."

"The other demons…" Richard tried to say, but was cut off by a gesture Walter made.

"Like these?" Came the simple reply as the once serial killer pointed at the body of Asmodean. "These are not gods. They walk like lambs to the slaughter…three already have fallen in the day you've been here. Ten were killed in the days when Sarah was still trying to get out of the city originally."

Realization suddenly dawned upon Richard as he looked at the way Walter carried himself. "You're not satisfied with being the Master of the Order. You're looking at intimidating the other demons to granting you the power to become the new god of Silent Hill!"

An exultant smile split Walter's face as he turned to face Richard. "And what better god would there be?" He asked smugly. "I've already proven that I could play both you and Sarah to perfection. Both of you have done marvelously in your efforts to restore me to power."

"You won't get it." Richard said, bending to scoop the medallion up out of a puddle of bloody water. '_Sarah's blood is in that water!' _His mind screamed at him, but he pushed the thought away, not willing to break down yet.

Walter laughed. "And why not? There's no where for you to go."

A cold look stopped even Walter in mid-laugh. "There's always somewhere to go Walter. You have four hours…four hours until I come for you."

"You know where I'll be." Walter said back just as coldly, drawing the wakizashi from its sheath. The blade once again burst into dark flames, but Richard was beyond caring.

Without knowing what would happen, or even if he could survive, Richard spun and sprinted towards the edge of the tower. A fast kick sent one of his pistols tumbling over the edge as he ran for it.

Walter's eyes opened in horror as he saw Richard's plan, and he sprinted after the now suicidal man. Just as Richard plummeted over the edge of the tower, Walter reached down one strong hand and caught him by the wrist. A sickening pop came from Richard's shoulder, but he gave no sign he felt anything.

"I win. I always win." Walter said, trying not to acknowledge the beads of nervous sweat rolling down his face. "You're out of options."

"Not quite." Richard said in a voice Walter knew well. It was the same one he'd used only moments before with him. Richard shifted his right arm and brought the Sword of Obedience directly against Walter's shoulder.

"You stab and you fall." Walter said desperately. "Is that what you really want?"

Richard said nothing, merely began to push the sword further and further into Walter's shoulder, passing through the black leather coat he wore, the black T-shirt, and eventually through skin. Blood flowed freely down both their arms until Walter's arm involuntarily opened, dropping Richard off the edge of the tower. As he fell the hundreds of feet, Walter lost sight of him.

Standing, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the wound in his shoulder, willing it to close by his orders. Yet this wound was different than any other he'd ever received, and wouldn't comply.

"It's because the wound is from the Sword of Obedience." A second voice said from the bleached bone rafters of the tower, a smooth voice that only seconds before had echoed through the tower. "Though I must say you're a marvelous actor."

Walter looked as a second Walter spun down from the rafters, swinging from a jutting bone and landing gracefully on his feet. "The Lord of lies is surely more talented than I'd given him credit for." Then, the second Walter watched as the one standing in front of him shimmered and changed form to that of a red haired woman.

"Still not willing to show your true form?" He asked dryly. "Or has it been so long that you've forgotten it?"

The red haired woman disappeared and was replaced by an old man in a woolen sweater and long grey pants. "I wouldn't mock the one who is making your plan possible." Belial said.

"You may cancel the other illusions." Walter said, waving one hand. "The very air stinks of them."

Belial raised his arm, wincing as the wound in his shoulder throbbed. Instantly Sarah's body shimmered and changed to reveal that of a nurse from the hospital with the Ronin Blade in her chest.

"The switch was made successfully then?" Belial asked cautiously. "Richard knows nothing?"

Walter shook his head and looked at the other body lying on the wet ground. "Even Asmodean wasn't sure what had happened...at least until the bullet killed him. Then he knew we'd betrayed him for our plans."

A large smile crossed Belial's face, followed almost instantly by another wince. "Things are going perfectly then. Richard has the sword, the medallion, and the will to use them both. You know what he'll do."

"The only thing he can do." Walter said as he walked towards the stairs to leave Asmodean's tower. He'd sell his soul to stop me at this point." He looked darkly over his shoulder, white hair framing his face. "And that's exactly what I plan to make sure he gets. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to see if Sari'tunia is still unconscious. She hasn't quite finished her role in my plans yet."


	17. Alex Starr

1_With three more chapters left until the end, I'll keep this brief and start working on the next one. I thank everyone for reading, and want to wish everyone a happy holidays no matter which version of it you might celebrate. _

_Now...to Silent Hill. _

His world was dark…he hated what he'd become. Each day had slowly changed from a series of never ending blissful happenings to the hell that he was now trapped in. It had all started when the man had returned to Silent Hill, when that bastard had begun to remember what had to be done.

He raged over his lost power, over that which he'd gained, but at supreme cost. There was nothing left to him, he was a spy, a traitor. He was simply a puppet to the greater power in Silent Hill now.

How long the man sat in the dark he would never know. He simply sat in pitch black, regurgitating his sufferings and chewing over them like a stale vomit. No creatures would attack him, and any that still retained a sense of humanity would find something else to put them out of their misery. He was a dangerous man, a crazy man, and most disturbingly…a desperate man.

Paul knew there was only one solution to end his humiliation at the hands of those that had caused his suffering. He had to kill them all. It didn't matter how, and it didn't matter if he survived it or not. Walter's blessing of immortality had been revoked only moments after leaving the hospital, allowing him the opportunity to die. It was one he planned to make good use of.

Another desperate and disturbed figure walked the streets of Silent Hill at that same time, a hate burning as deeply in his eyes as it did in Paul's. This man knew about suffering, about what it would take to destroy those behind Silent Hill.

Richard had invoked the power of Metatron's Medallion as he fell, knowing it was the only way to survive. All knew the power of the relic, able to protect a person from any harm in Silent Hill so long as they invoked its powers. Yet few knew just how the medallion worked.

In order to protect you, one had to sacrifice something in return. It was the nature of all magical items that you received nothing for free, but this one in particular carried a steep price.

He'd fallen, both from the tower and from the last bits of sanity that he'd known. Under no other circumstances had he intended to use the medallion, only to keep it from falling into Walter's hands…but as the wind had flown by his head, as the fiery ground had rushed up towards him, Richard had whispered the words to activate the medallion.

Instantly he'd felt a draining on himself, a pull on his very soul that felt like it was ripping pieces of him away. In a flash he'd changed, no longer was he the Richard that had fallen from the tower. Now he was something else, more primal...more angry.

The medallion hadn't slowed his fall, however, and he crashed into the steel pipework that made up the ground with a crunch. Bones snapped and crunched from the impact, shattering and piercing his skin and clothing. There was an instant of searing pain, a brief moment where he felt his entire body was freezing and burning at the same time, and sudden blackness.

The blackness gave way to a pinprick of light that danced before his vision, just out of arms-reach. "Name your terms." A voice said in his head. "What is it that you need."

He tried to open his mouth to speak, but couldn't find the strength to do so. Instead he simply thought his wish. '_The power to stop Walter, to defeat him, and destroy Silent Hill along the way.'_

"You know what the price of such a request is?" The voice asked after a brief hesitation.

'_I'll give it all...all and more if only you let me DESTROY Walter. To completely unmake him, and bring him crashing to the ground. I wish to end his hopes as he ended mine...to make him suffer as I now do.'_

The pinprick changed color slightly, going from white to green and then red. While he'd felt nothing from it before, now he felt a seething rage barely contained within the light. For the first time he sensed a power that not even Metatron could wield coming from the medallion.

For it was no longer Metatron that was in front of him. Richard's answer had given another daemon, one thought long dead, the ability to find another vessel for a corporeal form.

"I can give you the power you seek." The voice said in a voice that Richard didn't trust for a second. It sounded too slick, too smooth...like a snake slithering on the smoothest glass. "I can give you such power as to make you immortal, power overwhelming."

'_And what will you ask me to give in order to receive it?' _Richard questioned the crimson light. '_Name your terms…demon.'_

The demon began to whisper, first small petty terms that Richard easily agreed to, followed by increasingly difficult items. Concession after concession flowed from Richard as he did all he could to retain a firm grip on his humanity. Yet in the grips of his rage, the fear at bartering with a demon, and the pain of Sarah's death…he lost control of his agreements.

Only a few seconds later the demon sensed his advantage, and pressed it. Few had ever dealt successfully with the demon Richard now faced, not even Belial had been able to use words to his advantage against the form now worming its way into another human form.

As Silent Hill fell deeper into shadows and darkness, a broken body began to be reborn. Bones knit themselves back together, flesh and muscle winding their way around open wounds and battered tissue. Blood again pumped through destroyed arteries and severed vessels, and again Richard walked the streets of Silent Hill…though not as himself.

A new power was rising in Silent Hill, and Walter had been correct when he'd spoken to Richard on Asmodean's tower. Without Sammael, Silent Hill was falling apart. The magic that had infused the city was becoming more sporadic and random. Yet the powers of Sammael were not to be underestimated, for in the early days of his worship a number of ancient disciples had strayed. Each had intended to destroy the demon god, but had failed. In response Sammael had put the taint of his essence onto every relic and item in the city. It was no demon, lesser or greater, that Walter had ushered inside himself…it was the dark god Sammael himself. Ready to re-assume his power as the god of Silent Hill.

"I hate Silent Hill." A figure that Sarah would have recognized easily said as he stepped over the prone bodies of three Jersey Devils. Numerous bullet holes riddled their flesh, not surprising seeing as how the machine pistol he'd brought was now completely out of ammunition.

Throwing it to the side, he pulled out two of the three-shot burst VP70's he'd brought to the city. Two more pistols were nestled further back in hip holsters, and he had made sure to bring plenty of ammo for both.

This was the second time he'd been to Silent Hill…though the first hadn't been intentional. He'd been different then, living a life he now knew was impossible to ever go back to. How much he'd changed in just over ten years.

"I could be off the coast of Spain right now…" he muttered to no one in particular. "Find the President's daughter. It couldn't be much more simple of a job. Yet they gave it to Leon instead." Both of them had survived the hell of Raccoon City, but only he had survived the original fall of Silent Hill.

He reached up and touched a burn scar that ran lengthwise down his cheek, a remnant of an acidic enemy he'd damaged beyond repair with dynamite in the sewers of the city.

The branch of government he belonged to had long known about such things as The Order and Umbrella. Ever since Silent Hill had been permanently tainted by the demonic rituals of The Order, the government had realized that something had to be done. Since Alex Starr had survived the ordeal, managing to escape despite being badly wounded, he was asked to join a group so secretive that even after ten years of fighting for them…he still was unaware of their true purpose or name.

Alex Starr…a name from another life. One where he hadn't had to worry about every night's sleep, or constantly having to look over his shoulder. Still, if something good could be taken from his experiences, it's that he was always able to meet new people. Though most of them had tried to kill him at one time or another.

Getting his mind back on the mission, he walked further down the halls of the school building. Two other survivors of Silent Hill had gone missing three weeks ago. To them it might have only seemed like a day or two, but time moved differently in Silent Hill, giving it an eternal feeling.

He'd already searched the hospital, and had just entered the school when his least favorite air raid siren had sounded, signifying the change into a world more hellish than any he'd ever seen.

Somewhere in the city was Richard and Sarah, two people that knew more about Silent Hill and The Order than anyone else known to be alive. He'd been sent to get in, get them, and get out. Yet his superiors hadn't realized just how large the city was. He'd been searching for hours already and had found nothing except creatures, rot, decay, and terror.

Noticing that he needed to restock his supply of green chemical flares, he decided to call the school clean and return to where he'd left the his car. Hopefully it would still be there.

Turning, Alex heard a strange noise coming from the direction of the school he hadn't checked. With a sigh of frustration, he holstered one of his pistols and reached into a pocket of the black tactical vest he wore. Then, with a practiced motion, he cracked the chemical inside and threw the now brightly burning green light down the hallway.

Directly into a stationary creature whose very existence filled him with intense fear.

"You're dead." Alex said as calmly as possible when he saw Walter Sullivan standing down the hall. Only raising his pistol. "I read the reports, hell, I did the interview with Henry myself."

"It was only my mind that was destroyed, and I'm ever so happy to say that it's now fully restored." Walter quipped as he began to walk towards Alex, black clothing nearly perfectly hiding him in the shadows.

"And I'm supposed to feel better about that?"Alex asked incredulously. "That a madman now has the power of Silent Hill behind him?"

Walter laughed, drawing a curious smile from Alex and a twitch from his trigger finger. No bullets fired, but Walter could see that unlike Richard, his new prey wouldn't be as easy to kill.

Not many people could easily intimidate Walter, having tasted death twice, he knew that there was truly nothing to fear. Yet the man standing in front of him with the burn on his cheek came as close as he'd ever been. Walter could sense the fear in him, but also knew that it wouldn't control or force him into action like it had with Richard.

Instead, he decided to alter his plans a bit.

"They're both alive." He said simply, showing his knowledge of Alex's mission while holding his hands out to show he meant no ill will towards his target. "Though for how much longer I can't say."

"And they are?" Alex said just as simply, still training the pistol on Walter's chest. Sweat rolled down his back, but his hands and eyes never moved.

"Richard is somewhere in the city, and he has one of the Swords of Obedience. Though two more are still in my control. The final ones are lost to demonic gods I'd suppose."

The idea of three Swords of Obedience being in Silent Hill now intrigued Alex, but he resisted the urge to ask about them. His mission was to get Sarah and Richard out of the city alive. "And Sarah?" He asked after only a brief hesitation.

Walter had expected the news of the mystic swords to take Alex longer to process, but managed to cover his surprise well. "Sarah is in my control."

Alex nodded slowly, still not taking his weapon off from Walter. "Then by the power of the United States Government, I assert my authority to take her into custody. You WILL lead me to her, and hand her over."

Again, Walter laughed. "I'll do no such thing, Alex Starr. Years of effort are now coming to fruition, and I require her services for just a few more hours. Afterwards, I'll allow you to take what is left of her and Richard back to your government and make a full report that Silent Hill is in the firm control of a new God."

Shock caused Alex to lower his pistol a few inches. "You mean to say you've found a way to resurrect Sammael!" He gasped in disbelief.

"No. I'm not the one that will resurrect him. Instead, I will be the new God of Silent Hill, and I will do everything in my power to make sure that I keep that power!"

The chemical light dimmed and threatened to go out, and when Alex readied to throw a second, he heard wild footsteps running down the hallway. From behind Walter, a figure threw himself upon the so-called God of Silent Hill. Richard had tracked his prey, and now fought hard to secure the part of the bargain given to him by Sammael.

"You killed her!" Richard shouted, punching at Walter with his fists, and trying desperately to cause some lasting damage to his enemy. The two fought each other viciously, while Alex stood watching in awe at the fury of the battle.

He'd known as soon as Richard had tackled Walter, that there was nothing in his power that would separate the two. Instead, he waited until Walter pushed Richard off from him.

As Walter reached for the Ronin Blade at his waist, Alex grabbed Richard's arm and pulled him back along the hallway he'd come down originally. "Time to go!" Alex yelled as he pulled him, holstering his pistol and unhooking a grenade from his belt.

While half-running, half-pulling Richard, he pulled the pin out with his teeth and threw the projectile over his shoulder. "Three…two…one!" He hissed to himself while moving, when he hit one, he pushed Richard to the ground and followed suit.

A white hot explosion filled the air around them as splatters of phosphorous erupted all over the hallway. Walter screamed once, one of pain and anger before Alex could get Richard to his feet and get him out a door to the main lobby. A few more minutes of running and they had arrived at Alex's car…or rather what was left of it.

Broken glass and twisted metal lay surrounding it, and each of the four tires were so badly slashed that there was nothing left to drive on even if they could have gotten in. Surprisingly, every weapon that Alex had brought to the city had been placed on the ground beside a stack of ammunition.

The only other thing that was beside the weapons and ammo was a note, burnt on one corner.

_Alex,_

_You have Richard, and I have Sarah. I'd suggest a trade, but after your cowardly showing in the school I wouldn't accept it anyway. It has come time to end the game. Both of us are survivors of Silent Hill, and both of us know where the end must come. _

_To the victor shall go the city. Bring your charge, and I'll bring mine._

_Walter_

"Do we go to Walter?" Richard asked eagerly as Alex lowered the note…too eagerly. "Is it time to pay him back for killing my wife?"

A strange look came over Alex's face, as he looked at Richard. "Killed Sarah? He just told me that he had her."

"Her body." Came the short, but angry, reply. A brief flash of red appeared in his eyes, causing them to glow crimson for a short time. Had someone else been standing next to Richard, they never would have known what the flash meant, but Alex knew only too well the power of Metatron's Medallion.

Reaching out quickly, he pulled at Richard's neck and revealed the leather cord that held the medallion. His move brought a cry of outrage from Richard, who jerked himself backwards while scratching at Alex's hands with ragged and broken fingernails.

Long narrow scratches appeared in the shooter's gloves that Alex wore, but no damage came to his hands. Instead, he yanked harder on the cord and tried to rip it from Richard's neck. As he did so, he felt a bolt of sudden excruciating pain rip through his body and propel him backwards.

"You'll never get this from me!" Richard screamed, reaching up with a shaking hand to grip the precious metals that made up the medallion. Suddenly realizing he was screaming, he lowered his voice, but kept his hand protectively on it. "I'll die if I take it off. That was part of the agreement."

Alex pushed himself off the metal grates that made up the ground, the fires had died down with the rain that had fallen earlier, and while he still felt heat radiating from underneath him, it wasn't nearly as hot as it had been earlier in the night.

As he regained his feet, he glared quickly at Richard, but couldn't stay angry at him for more than a few seconds. He'd been lucky to resist the torment of Metatron's Medallion in the last few days of his own personal hell the first time he'd been in Silent Hill.

"Do you have any water?" Came the question from Richard. The glow in his eyes had faded, now replaced by exhaustion. "I really would like a drink."

Without saying anything, Alex undid a clasp on his tactical vest and withdrew a small canteen filled with water. As he handed it to Richard, he took the time to also think about his conversation with Walter. He knew that to invoke the Medallion, one had to barter with a demon, but the exact wording of one of Walter's phrases.

"I won't be the one to resurrect him…" Alex said quietly to himself, bringing a strange look from Richard. The poor man looked horrible, and already was varying his temperament as badly as Alex had after two days of influence of the magical item. When the answer came to him, he nearly shot Richard where he stood.

"Your demon was Sammael!" He gasped in horror at the realization. When Richard made no mention to stop him, only lowering his eyes, Alex drew a pistol and put it to his charge's head.

"If I let you live, then Sammael might come back into the world. Above everything I can't allow that." He said coldly. "I've seen the horror he caused in this world, and bringing him back would undo everything I've worked for."

Richard made no argument, merely kneeled on the ground and held out the canteen. "Thank you for the water." He said simply.

"I don't want to do this." Alex said, thumbing back the hammer on his weapon. "But you've given me no choice."

"Give me the chance to kill Walter." Richard asked without pleading. "After he's dead, I'll destroy Sammael. He killed my wife, and I need to take revenge for that."

Nothing else was spoken as a pistol shot cracked through the night in Silent Hill followed shortly by a body crumpling to the ground.


	18. The Beginning of the End

_Hopefully this one came a little faster than the chapters before it. ;) I seriously hope everyone enjoys this one, and looks forward to the next. Things are beginning to wrap up, and I personally think it will end with everything that you all hope. _

_Aedian_

"Run faster!" Alex screamed at Richard as he pushed him into one of the few standing buildings. The rot and decay that so signified Silent Hill was abundant, reaching out to them in strands of stripped wallpaper, and shattered drywall.

"How much longer do I have?" Richard asked quietly, raising the two pistols that he'd carried earlier in the night. "Until you decide to kill me I mean?"

Alex looked at a military watch on his wrist. "You've got forty-eight minutes left. At the end of that, I shoot you instead of one of the creatures, do you understand?"

Richard nodded, and pushed away from the wall, firing several bullets into a group of passing creatures. Four dropped lifeless to the ground before Alex joined him, sending just as many volleys into the retreating hellspawn.

"There's more of them now than before." A hard breathing Richard gasped from beside Alex. "What's bringing so many of them to the city now?"

A fast look from Alex made him wonder what he'd missed. Then the agent spoke and removed the doubt. "Two things. Their original God has found another body, and if that fails, then they'll have another one by morning."

Again nodding, Richard closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. When he re-opened them, he pointed to the east. "Walter's that way, and the gate between this world and the demon one is weakening. When it collapses...there won't be any stopping him."

"All that is because of the Medallion, isn't it?" Alex questioned, wondering if he just hadn't gained the ability to do that when he'd worn it. "It gives you the ability to sense Walter and the demonic gates."

"No," Richard disagreed. "It's because I was in The Order, one of the highest ranking they'd known. Now, with all of them dead or scattered, I'm probably the most powerful ritualist still living...and I'm sure as hell the only one that knows how to make Walter a God."

Motioning for the two of them to move east, Alex and Richard made their way out of the building, they ran for a building that Alex had visited earlier, and had sworn he'd never return to. They ran to the dark church of The Order. They ran to Sarah and any one else that might be alive still. They ran to Walter.

"They're coming." Walter said when he re-entered his throne chamber. Belial stood humbly to the right of the throne, trying to show his allegiance to Walter by position alone. If he thought his placement would please the one to be his soon dark God, he was mistaken.

Without acknowledging Belial further, Walter strode up the dias and sat in his throne. Belial gave a low bow before walking to the great stone door that made up the entrance. "Your minions are in place for when they try to enter. Those that were unchanged await further in. The Order has been reborn."

"And where did you get unchanged people?" Walter asked slyly. He wanted to know if the minions were truly human, or had been put under illusion by the lord of lies. "Last I had heard, all but a few people in Silent Hill were either killed or changed when the city fell. Only a handful survived without succumbing to the taint of the city."

Belial stopped suddenly, cursing himself silently for letting on more than he wished. When he turned around, however, he was grinning, and he was also wearing Walter's body having changed from a person Walter had never seen. "Many more were taken to the demon realms and kept by certain demonic lords as sport. Mine enjoyed the ability to fight for their survival. The ones I've brought you are excellent fighters. Consider them a...gift."

Walter noticed the darkening of Belial's voice on the word 'gift' but said nothing about it. His first task would be to rip their control away from Belial and bestow it upon himself. There were rituals that could do the task, but much more powerful were the promises of power. Why possess a man's mind when it would be just as easy to make him a protector of The Order with a share of the powers Walter would soon possess? In under an hour he'd have the beginnings of what would soon be a strong enough force to expand Silent Hill's influence to the surrounding cities.

A slight grin came over his face, mirroring the one on Belial's when he said "I'd like to speak with them...one at a time. I'll trust you can send them in?"

Instantly, Belial's grin faded, replaced by a emotionless scowl. "Of course...Lord Walter." He said reluctantly, his last plan for gaining any more strength in the city failing. If he hadn't have received that wound to his arm from the Sword of Obedience, he would simply pretend to be one of the men talking to Walter and gain power that way, but the wound still bled and would give him away almost immediately.

Walter knew it. Belial could tell by the smirk in the man's smoldering grey eyes that he'd already seen that possibility and countered it. As if to drive the point home that Walter no longer needed him, Belial heard the man rise to his feet and cross around to behind the throne. "When this all began, my dear friend." Walter said smoothly. "I couldn't have been more grateful for your help. In fact, I couldn't have gotten this far without your help, and I appreciate that.

He turned and faced the angry demon lord who was now changing forms without realizing it, anger having over taken any sense. "Now, however, you're simply another demon that can get in my way of becoming the god of Silent Hill. Once I've risen, I'll grant you the power you so desire, but until then I think it only fair you live as I now do...mortal."

"Mortal!" Came the expected gasp of dismay, but Walter quickly pushed it aside. Then Belial was doubling over in pain from the agony of the wound caused by the Sword of Obedience.

"Oh, I'd almost forgotten about that." A suddenly pouting Walter said. "Whatever will you do about that wound...it's almost as if you've never had to live with such pain before...but then again as a human, I can heal that for you." He threw a sidelong glance at the grimacing Lord of Lies. "One last favor for me, and I'll end your pain."

There was nothing Belial wanted more than to kill Walter at that moment, and had he had his immortality, he might have tried. Even with the power of the Ronin Blades on his side, the aged assassin couldn't still be a match for a demon lord. But he put that thought out of his mind as another bolt of pain slithered through his body, feeling as if it would tear the very flesh from his body.

Watching in amusement, Walter wondered just how long his subject would continue to hold out. The wound had been bone deep, and every second that Belial hesitated only caused the pool of crimson around him to expand...killing him by degrees.

It would be long and agonizing seconds until Belial agreed, but Walter finally kept his end of the bargain, striding towards his subject with echoing steps on the stone floor. As he reached him, Belial knew what was going to happen and began to scream.

Gunfire and screams filled the upper level of the church. Alex and Richard had fought their way through the dozens of hate-filled creatures. Back-to-back the two circled, firing and reloading as if they'd practiced the move dozens of times. Blood streamed from wounds caused by teeth, claw, and shards of wood and stone that filled the air. Strapped to Richard's back was the Sword of Obedience, sparkling a pristine white in the darkness and hellish gloom. Both had known that the weapon would be necessary, and could even be used to stop the Medallion's hold over Richard if necessary.

Together, they shot their way through the never ending hordes of demonic creations that Walter and Belial had summoned. Only occasionally were they forced to stop moving, for both knew that if they had to make a stand it would mean their deaths.

It was only when they turned a corner and looked back upon their work that they realized just how much damage the two of them had truly done to Walter's minions. Countless bodies littered the floor, blood and carnage splattered all over the walls. The very air reeked of sulphur and gunpowder, and their gun barrels were nearly glowing white from the constant use.

"Switch!" Alex yelled from behind Richard, causing them both to drop their nearly useless weapons and draw fresh ones. Alex drew another VP70, and Richard drew yet another pistol from Alex's hip.

From behind them, they heard the pounding of feet on the floor, and knew another wave of the creatures were after them. Without pausing, Alex reached into another pocket on his vest and withdrew a piece of what looked like clay. "I need a few seconds!" He shouted to Richard, who immediately pulled a grenade from the agent's belt and threw it around the corner. The explosion brought a chorus of screams and a wave of heat, but accomplished it's job. Alex finished what he was doing to the wall and motioned for Richard to follow them as he again sprinted down the hallway.

A thrown chemical stick sent caused the hallway to suddenly fill with a green glow, and gave the creatures running after them a target which they gleefully charged after. Until Alex hit a button concealed in his hand and detonated the C-4 charge he'd placed on the wall.

Instantly the hallway flashed yellow and the ceiling collapsed in on itself, sealing them off from any attacks coming from behind...and also trapping them from exiting the same way they'd come in.

Breathing hard, but still grinning to themselves, they wiped the dust and grime from their faces and waited for the air to clear before moving. That was when the steady sound of clapping caught their attention from their left.

"Well played." The figure of Belial said, clapping his hands together with just the slightest wince. Unlike his other forms, this one was remarkably similar to Walter, only close cropped hair, even down to the leather coat and black clothing. The only things missing were the Ronin Blades. "Well played indeed. I'd never imagined for you to make it this far without losing someone, but you managed to...in a way."

He stepped aside to reveal a red-haired woman tied with rope struggling wild-eyed on the ground backed by a half dozen humans carrying guns. As Richard's eyes widened, he slid a ceremonial dagger from underneath the jacket he was wearing while reaching down with one long hand. Grasping Sarah's hair, Belial jerked her head backwards and placed the tip of the dagger at her throat.

"How does this effect that Medallion you're wearing Richard?" Came the surprisingly cool question for one dealing with the direct wrath of Sammael. "Does knowing I'm going to kill her if you take a step do anything with it?"

It did, and Alex could see the air beginning to shimmer around Richard, taking on a distinctive smell of burnt flesh and death. He was beginning to lose control, but held enough sanity to murmur a phrase to Alex.

"Once I've saved her, shoot me. I'll be lost." Was all he said, and while Alex was still staring at him in shock, Richard gave fully into the Medallion and exploded into motion, ripping the Sword of Obedience from his back so quickly that it seemed to have just magically appeared in his hand. He dodged the expected bursts of weapons fire and moved supernaturally fast, as fast as Walter had when he'd first met him on that deserted road into Silent Hill.

Even as he did so, Alex was screaming. At first he screamed for Richard to stop, and then in denial of what he would have to do even as he pulled his pistols out and began to pick off the guards around them. He felt a first bullet and then a second slam into his tactical vest, but the bullet resistant plate stopped them. The force of the blows still threw him to the ground, where he bounced twice off the cold stone floor, cracking his head on a piece of rubble and feeling blood begin to freely drip onto the ground. He didn't stop his shooting at the three standing guards, though.

Weapons roared as loud as the voice of Sammael in Richard's ears as he perfectly pivoted to go in between two bullets. It should have been impossible, he KNEW it to be impossible, but he'd seen the trajectory of the projectiles and gone between them. He was still too far though, he saw that now. No amount of speed would save Sarah from Belial slitting her throat.

Alex could though, Richard realized as he felt a bullet pass by his cheek as if it were in slow motion. The shot was perfection in every way, flying unerringly to strike the tip of the pommel that Belial held, throwing his hand wide and only opening a shallow scratch along Sarah's throat. The bullet veered perfectly and opened only another shallow scrap along her brow.

Belial's eyes opened in amazement as he saw Richard in front of him, moving far to quickly to stop. He could only dive to the side as a razor-edged longsword split the air where he'd stood only seconds before. The dodge put Belial off balance, however, and a fast spin (faster still with his enhancements) put Richard in the perfect place to catch him. A fast shift of his footing put a fully extended leg directly in front of the demon lord, sending him sprawling to the ground just as the last of the human guardians dropped to the ground.

Without hesitating, Richard slammed the Sword of Obedience home. The blade sheered through the flesh and muscle of Belial's stomach to pass directly into the stones underneath him drawing a pure scream of unimaginable agony from the prostrate figure.

"I command this Sword of Obedience to hold Belial, demon lord of lies, in Silent Hill for eternity!" Richard screamed hoarsely. "May his days be filled with never ending agony, and may he long for a death he can never have!"

In response to the words, the blade flared a brilliant white-hot and didn't stop glowing. Belial screamed and screamed, words becoming unintelligible and gutteral. Yet one thing was certain...he was in all the hellish torment that Richard had wished upon him.

Turning slowly, Richard saw Alex on one knee pistol still smoking in his hands. He smiled and tossed a small knife from one of his never-ending pockets to Richard so that the man could cut his wife's ropes.

A fast swipe of his hand snagged the knife out of the air, and within the span of a few seconds, Sarah was rubbing her wrists to get the blood flowing to her hands again. As soon as her feet were free, she threw herself up and tried to hug Richard, but he pushed her away. The force of his push nearly sent her all the way back to the now standing Alex, and when she looked at him in bewilderment she suddenly saw the red glow in Richard's eyes and the smoldering air around him again.

"Now." Richard begged Alex, already feeling the demonic taint beginning to take him. "I can't hold it off any longer. Everything Sammael promised me has been delivered."

Sarah looked at Alex in amazement, finally seeing who it was for the first time. "You're alive!" She gasped in awe, reaching up to touch his burnt cheek with her fingers. Then a look of horror came over her face as she saw the pistol raise in his hand.

"No!" She screamed, jerking the arm with the pistol in it just before the shot rang. The bullet skewed and struck Richard in the shoulder, bringing a scream of pain from Alex. Sarah watched in awe as the wound appeared not in Richard, but in Alex, who began to leak blood from the wound. "You can't kill him!" She screamed in anger, trying to wrestle the pistol away from her former friend."

"I know what I'm doing!" Alex screamed back, and sighted in the weapon as best he could on the center of Richard's chest. He blocked everything out then except for the sights on the weapon. Belial's screams, Sarah's attacks, and Richard's glowing...all were shoved to the far corner of his mind. Before Sarah could skew this shot he fired again, praying to whatever god would listen that his shot was perfect.

The bullet threw Richard back, and he screamed only once as he struck the ground very close to where Belial lay unconscious on the ground, the pain having overwhelmed him.

"You son of a bitch you killed him!" Sarah cried, breaking down and falling to her knees only shortly before Alex did, his pistol falling from nerveless fingers and his hand grasping the torn flesh of his shoulder. The bullet had passed cleanly through his arm, not breaking anything. It was an incredible shot that he hoped he'd made again, for if he hadn't, he'd soon feel death's cold hand upon himself.

From the ground in front of him, Richard stirred and tried to sit up. He had stopped glowing, and now his hand went to a leather cord around his neck, pulling it up over his head to reveal Alex's true target, the twisted and broken Medallion that had controlled him. To the far left of it, a bullet remained stuck in the precious metals having saved both their lives.

"One in a million..." Alex whispered quietly to Sarah, echoing her sentiments to him from their earlier journey in Silent Hill. Not wishing to believe it, Sarah turned and saw Richard standing. This time she did hug him, throwing herself into his arms and sobbing wildly.

"Twice." Richard mouthed to Alex, making sure he knew that the agent had saved him from death due to the medallion twice. As if on cue, Alex's watch began to beep, telling him that Richard's hour was up.

He tried to reach up and stop it, but the effort was too much and he collapsed unconscious to the floor. Sarah and Richard quickly ran to him an as Sarah truly saw the wound, her breath hissed out in a worried grimace. The bullet had gone clean through, but he needed medical attention immediately or he most likely wouldn't survive.

Richard was already digging through the man's vest, looking for some kind of medical supplies and finding two bandages and an ampoule-like painkiller. As they worked, Richard removed the weapons and ammunition from the agent, placing them in his own holsters and jacket.

Once they were finished, Sarah took the canteen from Alex and both she and Richard took a drink before using the remnants of it to force Alex to drink. His throat bobbed instinctively as the water ran down it.

"We've got to get him out of here or he'll die." Sarah said sadly, knowing what this meant. Only one of them would be able to battle Walter in his throne room.

Richard nodded and checked the items he'd taken from Alex. They wouldn't ensure he would win, but couldn't hurt. He thought about taking the vest itself, but didn't think that Walter would have any difficulty in slashing through it. Besides, Sarah would need it to get out of the church.

"I love you." He said softly, running a hand through her bright red hair. "And I'll see you when I get back." There were a hundred other things that they wanted to say, but the shallow breathing of Alex told them that time was running out for him and the pull on Richard told him the demon gate was about to open.

Handing Sarah one of the two remaining pistols and half the ammunition, Richard watched as she hoisted Alex onto shoulder and slapped his face until he woke. With a slight nod, Alex began to stagger down the hallway with Sarah. It was only halfway down when he suddenly straightened and turned, whispering words that brought a smile to Richard's face despite the situation.

"I hate this city..." He'd said before turning and continuing his journey outside.

Behind them, Richard straightened and checked the number of bullets still in the pistol. With a final look at the unconscious Belial, he started running towards the throne room.

And in the throne room, Walter waited anxiously for him.


	19. So It Ends

_There will be one last chapter after this one, but I'd like to take now to thank everyone that has read the story, left a comment (it's 1:00 in the morning, so my mind isn't working enough for me to remember the exact word) or e-mailed me about the story. If you'd like to make any comments directly to me, please send them to (Aedian underscore it's not a space in the name) I'd love to hear criticism, or just general comments on how you all thought the story went. Again, thank you very much for reading it and I hope it was worth the wait. I truly enjoyed writing it for all of you._

1Richard sprinted down the stone halls of The Order's church. His shoes slapped hard on wet stone from where the rains above the city had seeped through cracks to finally puddle. Demons of all kinds swarmed through the same passageways he charged down, but none were able to stop him.

Bullets flew from a variety of weapons as the human servants of Walter opened fire to stop Richard from getting to their lord. Most of the shots were incredibly off target, but the others forced Richard to dive behind a supporting pillar in the stone. The bullets that missed slapped wetly into the demons behind him, killing several and scattering twice that many. Giving Richard just enough time to reach into his pocket and pull out something that he slapped onto the pillar before rolling back out into the open and regaining his feet.

In the brief look he'd had, he'd counted ten loyalists crouched down behind a fallen piller in the hallway. Five more stood holding the ceiling, and Richard hoped that four would keep the weight above him.

Still in a low crouch he sprinted into an alcove, firing several shots to keep the human loyals down. One stood too early, and Richard's shot took him in the head, splattering a cloud of red and pink into the air behind him.

"This'll clear my path..." Richard muttered to himself before reaching back into his pocket and pressing a button.

Instantly the pillar exploded into thousands of tiny stone shards that ripped through the demon ranks to clear him the expected path towards the throne room. Making sure that he wouldn't run into a trap, he pulled another object from his coat. Bringing it to his teeth, Richard pulled a metallic pin out and spun out into the corridor again, throwing the grenade with his right hand while firing with his left.

The grenade sailed true, landing in the exact middle of the few loyalists that remained and detonating with a deafening boom. A quick toss flipped the pistol to his right hand, and Richard turned it sideways, using the muzzle-kick to push his hand across the room. Halfway through his arc, the weapon clicked empty and he took that as his cue to continue the desperate sprint through the now half destroyed piller.

His empty clattered to the floor as he ran, hitting the stone with a metallic ping that rang through the hallway, followed by a dull thud as he dropped something else. Moments later the demons behind him were vaporized as another grenade exploded, force of the blast throwing Richard several feet forward and peppering him with stinging metal. A few slivers buried themselves in his body, but he ignored them, so caught up in the moment that he didn't even feel their sting.

He slammed another clip into his pistol and popped the slide forward as he neared a wooden door at the end of yet another hallway. Planting his front foot, he spun and slammed his back one into it in a kick so hard it snapped the lock and sent the door flying inward revealing two startled human loyals with automatic weapons.

The first fell instantly as Richard shot him in the head, but the second kicked over a wooden table and dove behind it. Eyes widening, Richard dropped to the floor and rolled to the cover of a stone wall as the automatic weapon began chattering and ripping chunks of the stone apart.

While regaining his feet, Richard pinched another small amount of C-4 between his fingers, attached a detonator, and leaned back into the room. Bullets whizzed by his body, one ripping a small furrow along his cheek, but he managed to throw the plastique near the table. A small sadistic chuckle followed as he eliminated the other threat in the room.

With everyone he knew of in the room dead, Richard crouched and slunk into the room. He'd come to far to take chances, and wasn't going to let himself get cocky. In the last few minutes he'd almost died dozens of times, and was getting tired of it. At some point his luck would have to run out.

As his adrenaline stopped pumping through his veins, Richard suddenly began to feel the pain of all the abuse he'd put himself through. A large bruise had appeared on his chest from where the medallion had stopped Alex's bullet, his knees and elbows were raw and bleeding, and with a grimace he pulled several metal slivers from his forearm through a bullet hole in his coat that must have barely missed him.

He used a torn piece of his shirt to wipe the blood from the furrow in his cheek and noted that there wasn't much. The bullet had managed to cauterize most of the wound, only leaving the tail end of it open.

Not willing to stop long enough to fix any of his wounds, Richard took a brief moment to look around the room he was in. The remnants of one body had been thrown across the room, bullet wound still evident in his head. The other had been completely destroyed along with the table. The explosion had left a black scorch mark on the floor and destroyed several of the stained-glass windows in what appeared to be a library. Stacks of books and bookshelves lined the walls, several of them having stopped deadly amounts of shrapnel flying through the air. In one, a large chunk of table was clearly seen rammed through four books on the occult.

The room brought back hazy memories for Richard, tickling the back of his mind and then flitting away like the shadows on the wall. They tried to come back one other time, to show him the more joyous memories he'd had in The Order, but he forced them away this time. Those days were over, and if he held onto even a single happy memory then he could hesitate. Closing his eyes, he remembered the pain, the suffering, and the hate he'd felt all night. Concentrated on it and embraced it, making it a part of himself.

Then he opened them, and the part of him that had once been was gone. He was again the machine he'd been just a few minutes ago, all shreds of humanity carefully locked away. After placing another charge on the doorway, he continued moving through the library and eventually saw a larger stone that jutted an inch out from the wall. It was a dummy stone attached to a trap that would engulf the library in demonic fires, destroying everything should it be pressed.

Richard heard demons begin to enter the library, saw them running angrily towards him. A single push of a button blasted dozens apart, sealing the library off from everything else. Moving quickly then, he pressed the stone underneath the one he'd seen and a door slid back from the wall, perfectly hidden amid the aged mortar and crumbling rock. As Richard slipped into the shadows and blackness of the passage, he hit the other stone instantly engulfing the library in hellfire.

As he ran through the ancient corridor, he heard the screams of demons in agony and just continued running, not caring any further. It was them or him.

The passage led out into a room only a few doors away from the throne room, and Richard slowed to a jog. His breath whistled out of his mouth in heavy gasps, but he didn't have the time to stand there to catch it. Still, he just walked the next few steps, passing several torches that provided the only light to the corridor.

As he walked, he heard stone scraping on stone and spun quickly to see a pistol only an inch in front of his face.

"So you've finally come." Paul hissed as he put the pistol closer, resting the cold steel on Richard's forehead. "I'd hoped it would be you and not anyone else."

"Are you going to kill me now?" Richard asked angrily, pistol hanging in the air halfway to Paul's chest. "Kill me and be in constant servitude to Walter?"

Steel ground against flesh as Paul pressed the pistol harder against Richard's face. "If I kill you, he might let me gain control of a part of Silent Hill."

"Might." Was all Richard said, waiting and watching as Paul's finger tightened on the trigger. Two pounds of pressure, three…there was no telling how much more until it fired.

Then he ripped the weapon away and fired several shots into the corridor, bringing the screams of demons to Richard's ears again. "This way!" Paul shouted as continuing roars of anger began to fill the hallway. "Walter's almost done opening the door to the Demonic Realms!"

Paul grabbed Richard's arm and pulled him into the passageway that he'd come from, firing several shots into what looked to be an oncoming wave of demons. "If you go through here, you'll come out directly in the throne room. It's only a few hundred feet away…GO!"

"What about you?" Richard asked, confused by the sudden shift of Paul's thinking. "Are you just going to stay here and kill demons until Walter's dead?"

Five more shots rang out when Paul's pistol rang out empty. "No, I'm done." He said quietly. "I've been watching you move through the church. Give me a grendade and I'll make sure it's just you and Walter fighting."

As Richard ran towards Walter and his final battle in Silent Hill, he heard the screaming of demons, of Paul, and finally the massive explosion that signaled he was truly without allies in Silent Hill.

Inside the throne room, Walter sat on his throne, hearing gunfire and explosions growing ever closer. Already, hundreds of his demons had been killed and it was only a matter of time until someone came for him. Clutching the Ronin Blade tighter in his hand, he turned and again read the inscription on the wall behind the throne.

"Thus they exalted his name, calling him the Master of The Order. Take thine rightful position Walter Sullivan, and know that Silent Hill is now yours." A voice said from behind him, bringing his head jerking around, white hair making a perfect contrast on the dark black leather he wore.

"I contest that." Richard said as he stood at the bottom of the stairs leading to the throne, stairs that had grow with Walter's power and rank to being over twenty tiers tall. The very sight of them put him on a pillar the likes of which set him higher than any demon lord in Silent Hill.

"You're finally here." Walter said, surprised at how calmly he was able to say those words for he'd never expected Richard to ever make it this far. "I guess it is true…only I can kill you."

"Vice versa Walter." Richard said just softly enough to be heard. With his back still turned, the Master of The Order heard the click as a hammer was thumbed back, an unnecessary and even futile move that told him the necessity to turn around and face his opponent.

Taking a step forward, Walter spread his arms widely. "You haven't shot yet. Probably because you see as well as I do that this is destiny. We were meant to rule together."

He barely saw Richard's finger tighten on the trigger, barely managed to drop to one knee, and barely was able to dodge the bullet that passed less than an inch from his left ear. A flick of his right wrist sent a throwing knife tumbling into it, and as Richard charged up the stairs, Walter flung his arm forward and sent the knife flying straight forward.

The knife buried itself in Richard's arm, bringing a scream of pain to his lips, but he stopped it, biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood instead. He fired three shots as he came up the stairs, knowing that he would have no time to reload when he was fighting Walter.

Even knowing how fast his opponent was, Richard barely managed to dodge the lightning fast swipe of the Ronin Blade as Walter swept it out of the sheath and whistling through the air. It was only by moving the pistol up to stop the swing that he managed to keep from being split in two.

Drawing back for a second swing, Walter dropped his feet out from underneath himself and was suddenly on one knee slashing low for Richard's shins. Only a furious back-pedal kept the strike from hitting, but at the same time he fired two more shots, one ripping into Walter's arm and the other digging an identical furrow in his cheek.

Yet he hadn't dodged perfectly, and despite the sudden pain in his arm, Walter managed to alter his swing and open a long gash along Richard's left leg, digging to the bone before ripping it out.

Pain too intense to be measured flared in Richard's mind, but instantly a wall of sheer rage and terror blocked it out as he forced pressure back down on the wounded leg, ignoring the sheet of blood already streaming down it.

With no other option, he punched out, hoping to catch Walter with the hard steel of his pistol and knock his nemesis back far enough for one final shot. Instead, he found the cold edge of a katana and lost his grip on the pistol, watching it fly over Walter's head and onto the freezing stone in front of the throne.

At the same time, the Ronin Blade flew from Walter's hand, landing behind Richard with a clatter. Wordlessly the two turned and dove for the other's weapon. When they both had turned and looked up they knew what had to happen. Walter had his foot on the pistol, and Richard had his hand on the katana from where he knelt on the floor.

"It has to end this way?" Richard asked through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the horrible burning in his leg. "There's no other way?"

Walter looked at him strangely, as if judging him. "It has to finish Richard. At least Sarah lived. She never was supposed to."

"One" Richard said, eyes closed.

"Two" Walter echoed.

"THREE!" The both shouted as they slid their weapons to the other.

Richard picked the pistol up at the same time that Walter slid his foot under the katana and kicked it into his hand. As the room around them exploded into a deafening boom, he swung.

For a full second after the twin attacks, neither man moved. Walter held his sword fully extended and Richard kept his shooting stance. Then blood began to trickle down Walter's chest and the Ronin Blade clanged to the ground as he clutched the wound where the bullet had struck him.

Soundlessly he collapsed to a heap in the floor and died, the greatest threat to Silent Hill since Sammael had been killed before he could take full power of the city.

"Have peace at last Walter." Richard whispered quietly as he dropped the pistol and began to stagger down the staircase. He pressed his left hand to his stomach as he did so, trying to hold his ruined stomach in. Walter's attack had struck him just below the bellybutton and ripped cleanly all the way through the left side of his stomach.

A trail of blood followed him down the stairs, and as his vision began to fade to blackness he saw Sarah standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"Sa….a….rah?" He managed weakly, holding his right hand out pleadingly. "It…it hurts…" Was all he said before collapsing at the bottom of the stairway, illusion of Sarah giving way to cold stone.

"I'll…..mi….ss……….you." And then he too slipped into the cold embrace of death amid the carnage and destruction of what remained of Silent Hill.

As his last breath finished, an air raid siren began to blow and the city reshaped itself, turning to as it had been when he'd first been welcomed to the city after meeting Walter on the road. Silent Hill was ready for the next poor soul to enter its limits.


	20. Epilogue

_This is a short chapter, since all the action went into the last one. Just more of a rap-up of everything that had happened. Enjoy everyone, and since this is the last Silent Hill chapter for this particular story I'd appreciate any full story reviews that people would like to send me. _

_If anyone would like to use characters that I've developed, please simply ask and I'll more than likely say yes. Of course I cannot patrol the entire internet, but if any of them are stolen and used without my permission, then I ask that anyone seeing that would tell me so I can take care of it. Of course I don't expect anyone to steal them since everyone reading this has been amazing in their conduct, this is just a precaution._

_Thank you everyone, and until I start my next story series, I'll bid you a good day!_

_Adium Dac Neoc Navine_

_Aedian Grendle AKA David Struve_

Three months had passed since Alex and Sarah had left Silent Hill, and there'd still be no word from Richard. Days after making his report and having his wound treated, Alex had returned to the city only to find that all the roads did was wind endlessly. Somehow the city had returned to dormancy, taking whomever still resided within it back to whatever hell it occupied.

Alex had thought he'd have a story to finally beat Leon's Raccoon City affair, but quickly found that the trip to rescue the President's daughter hadn't gone well at all. For once he felt that he'd gotten the better deal, and never stopped reminding the young Kennedy about it.

Sadly, Sarah had quickly disappeared after leaving him at a nearby hospital. The only clue as to where she'd gone was a note left in his room.

_Alex,_

_Something happened to the city, something that can't be explained. All I know is that Richard most likely isn't coming back. You knew as well as I that the city wouldn't allow him to leave a second time, but at least his part in this is done. _

_Thank you for all you did for us, for doing everything to keep Richard alive when everything pointed to his death. Good luck in the future…I doubt we'll meet again. _

_Sarah_

That search would have occupied more of his time if the body of a red-haired woman hadn't been found a few hours later with a gunshot wound to the head from Alex's own weapon. Most at the bureau Alex worked at were content to call it a suicide and close the case, but most knew it was just another cover-up to allow Sarah to run. They simply added murder to the list of charges she was wanted for, but had no real hopes of ever charging her.

So it was that after three long months of searching for something he never truly hoped to, or in the case of Silent Hill never WANTED to find, Alex gave up and traveled to his apartment on the outskirts of the bureau's base.

'Home at last.' He thought to himself as he began walking up the wooden stairs that led to the small but nice apartment he'd been given by the government. The aged wood creaked loudly, bringing a wail from a nearby stray cat, but Alex didn't argue. That creak had saved his life before, and he wasn't going to argue with it now.

Barely fumbling with the key, he opened the door and watched as the motion light on the inside of the door clicked on, revealing a sparsely furnished entryway into his home. Directly to his right was the living room and kitchen, separated by a half-wall that had once been part of a different apartment.

Re-locking the door behind him, he walked into the living room, and hung his coat on the rack that stood next to a sofa and recliner. Twin lamps stood on opposite sides of the room, one by a bookshelf filled with a variety of fiction, historical documentaries, fantasy, and books on the occult. The other was by a decent sized television, with only a few more payments on it.

Most people would have gone straight to bed, but Alex never made it that far. Sliding onto the couch, he propped his head up on the arm, grabbed the remote, and turned the television onto the only station he ever watched.

Scenes from World War II raged on the screen in black and white as the History Channel did yet another special on Hitler's Reich. The history teacher in him wanted to watch it, but his travels were catching up with him, and his eyes slowly closed on their own.

Hours later he awoke feeling only moderately refreshed. The television had remained on, changing to Hitler's last attempts to utilize the occult to win the war. Not willing to watch something like that, Alex turned it off and walked to the other side of the apartment where the bathroom was.

After using it, he splashed cold water on his face in an attempt to shake away the last bits of sleep that still clung to him. Then, rubbing his face with a small green towel, he walked back into the living room.

The first thing he noticed was the television had been turned back on, screen full of soundless static that caused the shadows to dance along the walls.

"No…" Alex whispered breathlessly, reaching towards his coat where a handgun was loaded and waiting…only to find the coat still where it was but no weapon inside it.

"I would not be the best if I wasn't able to take that weapon from you." Walter Sullivan said as he walked from the kitchen into the living room, directly opposite where Alex stood. For a split second the static sparkled on something around his back before leaving the room in shadows again.

"Richard failed then." Alex said sadly, wondering how he'd managed to miss all that had happened. "You killed him."

Walter shook his head, taking several steps closer and unhooking a buckle around his shoulders. Removing a scabbard from his back, he lay a longsword on the ground before sitting in Alex's recliner.

"No, I never wanted him dead." Walter said softly. "I simply needed him to open the demon gate and allow me to take full control of the city. He wouldn't do me that favor, however, and it cost him his life."

"But you had to have killed him!" Alex shouted, looking around the room for something to use as a weapon. "He fought you at the end."

Again Walter shook his head, drawing the blade that lay on the ground. OBEDIENCE sparkled in golden letters as the static from the television struck it. "Belial has always been good at illusions." He said simply, pulling up his shirt for Alex to see the purple scar that ran along his stomach where Richard had stabbed him in the hallway, thinking him to be Belial.

"I knew at that point the city was never going to be mine. I decided to cut my losses and survive. After Richard stabbed me, the sword burned white-hot, closing my wound. Had I truly been Belial I'd still be in that hellish place, burning in agony for all eternity. Yet I managed to pull the weapon out and stumble out of the city before it disappeared back into damnation."

"And Richard?"

"Dead sadly, though he took Belial with him…no small task for any mortal to do so, especially when the demon lord held the Ronin Blade." Walter acknowledged.

Alex took a few steps closer, surprising Walter with his motions. "And what are you doing here?" He managed to ask the assassin.

"You remember Henry Townsend, don't you?" Walter asked, knowing full well that Alex had been the one to investigate that case. "I think we're going to play a little game…"

That's when the lamps fully lit the room, when rot and decay of Silent Hill was fully revealed, and when Alex saw with a sinking feeling in his stomach that the door had been securely shut by chains from the inside.

Walking into the kitchen, Walter gestured with the sword and Alex had no choice but to follow, a prisoner in his own apartment…


End file.
